HUGE: House Intel Committee Releases Monday’s Mtg. Minutes – Schiff Admits to Secret Contact with FBI Chief Chris Wray

HUGE: House Intel Committee Releases Monday’s Mtg. Minutes – Schiff Admits to Secret Contact with FBI Chief Chris Wray

Guest post by Joe Hoft

The House Intelligence Committee Released Minutes of its stormy meeting held on Monday January 29, 2018. The minutes show the Democrats on the Committee panicked and lie their way to do all they can to obstruct the investigation into FBI and DOJ abuses and side with the perpetrators in the FISA abuse scandal rather than with Americans who want the truth.

The House Intelligence Committee (IC) released their minutes from Monday’s meeting.  Here is a summary of the comments and motions made during the meeting as noted in the 58 page document –

P3 – The meeting begins with the IC noting that the purpose of the meeting is to discuss the Democrats (Dems) memo

P4 – Adam Schiff (D) declares that the memo that the Republicans want to be made public contains ‘misleading representations and factual problems’ and states that the FBI wanted to appear to discuss the memo and the DOJ described releasing the memo as reckless.

P5 – Schiff wants 3 motions – 1) To make the Dem’s memo available to all members of the House. 2) To allow the FBI and DOJ to review both documents and provide classified briefing to entire House.   He states that only he and Rep Gowdy are apparently the only 2 members to review underlying materials to FISA memo. 3) To release both Dem and FISA memos to the public.

P6 – Rep Conaway (R) states that the Dem document to date is “sight unseen” [i.e. it has not been shared with the Committee]

P7 – Rep Sewell (D) wants both memos released

P7 – Rep Quigley (D) freaks out about Russia

P9 – Schiff (D) wants Steve Bannon and Corey Lewandowski to come in for more interviews

P10 – Rep Swalwell (D) complains and doesn’t want FISA memo released because the Committee violates “an agreement with the DOJ”. He wants to release the Dem’s 10 page memo along with the FISA 4 page memo.

P11 – Schiff (suspected of leaking sensitive documents) states his concerns with leaks about the memos

P12 – Schiff complains and demands releasing both documents to the House [the FISA memo has already been shared with the House]

P14 – The Committee agrees to send the Dems memo to the House

P16 – Rep King (R) moves to “disclose publicly” the FISA memo

P18 – King claims that “contrary to claims made in the media, this committee has been transparent with the FBI”. Reps Nunez and Gowdy provided FBI director Wray a copy of the FISA memo on Sunday and shared memo with 2 senior FBI employees on Monday before the IC meeting.  The Rep King states –

There are moments in our history when full transparency is required so that all Americans can understand what their government has done. After all, this is the American people’s House, and we work for them. 

Having carefully balance the need to keep the information secret with the need to inform the public, I have concluded that this matter requires us to disclose the information in the memo to the American people.”

P19 – Chair states that he believes FISA memo was properly vetted with no classified information.

P20 – Schiff states that he talked with FBI Director Wray [privately] and states Wray wants to come before the Committee to state his concerns with the FISA memo [Why did Wray share this only with Schiff?  When did this secret meeting or discussion take place and who else was present?] Schiff makes a motion to delay releasing the FISA memo.

P21 – Chair states that the DOJ and FBI have been under investigation by the Committee for

“many, many months for FISA abuse and other matters. That investigation continues.  And I would urge my colleagues to vote no, we are not going to be briefed by the people that are under investigation by this committee.”

P22 – Chair notes how the Dems have opposed several subpoenas and the FISA memo being made available to the House.

P23 – Quigley (D) asks if the memo worked on with the White House and the Chair states not to his knowledge.

P25 – Dems demand not to release the FISA memo

P27 – Rep Speier (D) says that the Committee has not reviewed the FISA memo [even though made available to the entire House? She must have not looked at it.]

P27 – Rep Swalwell (D) asked to have an Inspector General review the memo before being released.

P28 – Schiff says the DOJ and FBI are willing to “cooperate” and says the memo is at the bidding of the White House.

P30 – the Committee votes on Schiff’s motion on whether to allow the FBI and DOJ to review the FISA memo and provide a briefing to the House and delay the public disclosure of the memo. The motion does not pass.

P34 – Schiff says he is “loath to see the public misled” and motions to vote on having the Dem’s memo released with the FISA memo [even though no one on the Committee has seen or had the opportunity to see the Dem’s memo]

P37 – Schiff pretends to be concerned that not releasing the Dem’s memo will look bad and demands that the FBI be able to redact and edit the FISA memo before being released.

P39 – Rep Sewell says she is so disappointed in the entire Committee for politicizing this investigation.

P41 – After Dems bitching about releasing the FISA memo the Committee votes on whether to attach the Dem’s memo to the FISA memo and send to the President. [Again, the Committee had not yet had the opportunity to review the Dem’s memo nor had the House had the opportunity to see it.]

P44 – The Committee agrees not to attach the [unread] Dem memo with the FISA memo and send to the President.

P44 – The Committee next votes on whether to release the FISA memo to the public [by first sending it to the President for review.] The motion passes.

P47 – Schiff motions to release the Dem’s memo to the public [even though no one on the Committee or the House has yet had opportunity to review it]. The motion fails [again].

P51 – Schiff asks that the minutes of the meeting be made public.