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Also see: House of Representatives; Devin Nunes; Adam Schiff; Michael Cohen;
Jump to: 2018; 2019;
Undated: The United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), also known as the House Intelligence Committee, is a committee of the United States House of Representatives, currently chaired by Adam Schiff. It is the primary committee in the U.S. House of Representatives charged with the oversight of the United States Intelligence Community, though it does share some jurisdiction with other committees in the House, including the Armed Services Committee for some matters dealing with the Department of Defense and the various branches of the U.S. military.
The committee was preceded by the Select Committee on Intelligence between 1975 and 1977. House Resolution 658 established the permanent select committee, which gave it status equal to a standing committee on July 14, 1977.
In 2017, the committee was tasked along with the SSCI to determine the degree of Russian interference in 2016 US elections.[3] The committee has also been investigating allegations of wiretapping of President Donald Trump, as well as ties between Russian officials and members of Donald Trump's presidential campaign.[4][5] The committee came under intense scrutiny in 2017-2018 due to allegations of partisanship and leaks of classified information by members of the committee and their staff. In March 2018, the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections was abruptly ended by the committee's Republican members despite the assertion by Democratic members that the investigation was incomplete and had failed to gather pertinent information. Notably, House Intelligence Republicans released a draft of their investigatory report which contradicted some findings of the U.S. Intelligence Community and was written without the input of House Democrats.[6][7] In the wake of bitter disagreement about the committee's findings, Republican committee member Tom Rooney claimed that the committee had "lost all credibility" and had become "a political forum for people to leak information to drive the day's news."[8] In July 2018, the chair of the committee, Representative Devin Nunes, accused the Department of Justice, and its Federal Bureau of Investigations, of "stonewalling" the committee's investigation and taking partisan sides with regard to its Russia investigation.[9]
With change of Party leadership in the House for the 116th United States Congress, the Committee launched a probe of Trump's finances and Russian ties in February 2019.[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Permanent_Select_Committee_on_Intelligence
-- 2018 --
November 2: How House Democrats Will Investigate Trump’s Russia Ties
Gains in congressional midterm elections give Democrats crucial subpoena power.
During Trump’s first two years in office, House Republicans used the committee largely to protect him. In an interview with Foreign Policy, one of the committee’s ambitious young Democrats, Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, explained exactly how that would change.
The Democrats’ investigation would focus on bank and travel records of Trump lieutenants and businesses. It would also attempt to resolve questions about the president’s knowledge of a Russian offer during the 2016 campaign to provide political dirt on his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. And in the aftermath of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing, the committee might also scrutinize Trump’s business ties to the Gulf.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/11/02/how-house-democrats-plan-to-investigate-trumps-russia-ties/
November 7: Here come the subpoenas: What House Democrats plan for their Russia probe
In January, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee will be able to compel testimony, and perhaps to force the release of Mueller's report.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/here-come-subpoenas-what-house-democrats-plan-their-russia-probe-n933681
November 21: House Intelligence Panel Hiring Money-Laundering Sleuths
One of President Trump’s biggest foes is taking steps to chase the Trump-Russia money trail.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/house-intelligence-panel-hiring-money-laundering-sleuths
December 1: For nearly two years, Donald Trump has had the benefit of a former campaign surrogate acting as his personal missile-blocking defense system. Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has run interference on the Trump-Russia probe as chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, blocking the release of pertinent information and obfuscating any findings that could be construed as damaging to Trump.
“We were blocked from subpoenaing Deutsche Bank and other banks to see if there is a financial relationship between Russian oligarchs and the president,” Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said during an interview this week on PBS NewsHour. On Thursday, as Cohen entered his guilty plea, German law enforcement officials raided the Frankfurt offices of Deutsche Bank, Trump’s largest bank lender. There is no known connection between the raids and the Russia probe, but speculation has been rampant.
Cohen’s admission in open court on Thursday makes clear, however, there is still time to mete out real legal consequences for anyone who might have broken the rules while Devin Nunes was pretending to exercise congressional oversight.
https://www.salon.com/2018/12/01/devin-nunes-protected-roger-stone-and-donald-trump-jr-from-mueller-probe-democrats-wont/
-- 2019 --
January 3: As of this week Democrats will control the committee gavels in the House, marking a significant shift in the politics of foreign policy making and possibly the substance of policy as well. Several recent pieces by former Obama Administration officials, like this one and this one, have addressed how Democrats could push back against President Trump’s deleterious actions in the national security and foreign policy spaces. They encourage Congress to use the constitutional powers that the Republican majority has been reluctant to assert over the past two years and exercise the prerogatives of the legislative branch.
Representative Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) work as Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) will be front and center in the 116th Congress. His tenure follows Devin Nunes’s (R-Calif.) handling of that committee’s Russia investigation in the last Congress, which seemed aimed primarily at shielding President Trump and his campaign from accountability.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2019/01/03/congress-in-2019-the-many-challenges-facing-adam-schiff-and-the-house-intel-committee/
January 28: Michael Cohen to testify behind closed doors to House Intelligence Committee
Trump's former attorney and long-time fixer had initially accepted an invitation to testify during an open session before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Feb. 7, saying he looked forward to “having the privilege of being afforded a platform with which to give a full and credible account of the events which have transpired.”
But, last Wednesday, Cohen announced that he was delaying the appearance out of concern for his family's safety.
"Mr. Cohen has relayed to the Committee his legitimate concerns for his own safety as well as that of his family, which have been fueled by improper comments made by the President and his lawyer. As I've previously stated with my colleagues, Chairmen Elijah Cummings and Jerrold Nadler, efforts to intimidate witnesses, scare their family members, or prevent them from testifying before Congress are tactics we expect from organized crime, not the White House, Schiff's statement read. "These attacks on Mr. Cohen’s family must stop. Federal law prohibits efforts to discourage, intimidate, or otherwise pressure a witness not to provide testimony to Congress. We will continue to work with Mr. Cohen and law enforcement in order to protect Mr. Cohen and his family."
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trumps-attorney-fixer-michael-cohen-testify-closed-doors/story?id=60687111
March 1: Congressional Democrats Investigate Trump's Business, North Korea Summit Fallout
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has scheduled an open interview with former Trump Organization business booster Felix Sater on March 14.
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/01/699261915/news-brief-congressional-democrats-investigate-trumps-business-north-korea-summi
March 6: Today, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, released a statement following the announcement that President Trump ended a requirement that U.S. intelligence officials publicly report the number of civilians killed in drone strikes and other attacks on terrorist targets outside of war zones:
“There is simply no justification for the Trump Administration’s decision to cancel the requirement for the Director of National Intelligence to produce and publish an annual report on civilian casualties that result from the U.S. government’s use of targeted lethal force abroad. The requirement put in place by the Obama Administration in 2016 to issue a report on civilian casualties represented an important measure of transparency, and our commitment to holding ourselves accountable. The Trump Administration’s failure to issue the report required under the Executive Order in 2018, and now to withdraw the requirement altogether is a troubling retreat from transparency. Today’s decision underscores the need for Congress to make this reporting mandatory, something I intend to pursue through the Intelligence Authorization Act this year."
https://intelligence.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=613
-- 2020 --
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