House Democrats may issue a 'minority report' detailing how Republicans impeded the Russia investigation
House Democrats are considering publishing a "minority report" on the efforts of House Republicans to slow down the House's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, The Washington Post reported Tuesday. Democrats in the lower chamber of Congress are frustrated by what they believe is a concerted effort to stymie their attempts to examine certain documents and bring in people of interest for interviews, the Post reports.
Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told the Post that the Democrats would compile a document that at least in part claims the committee was unable to fully explore potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia because of Republican roadblocking. "It would be a tragedy if the report has a minority section that says, 'Look, we wanted to talk to these two dozen witnesses and weren't able to do so,'" Himes said.
The two witnesses that are of most interest to the Democrats are Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump Jr., the president's eldest son. But House Republicans have been reluctant to bring them in for a second round of questioning, despite multiple requests from the minority to do so, Himes told the Post.
If the Democrats do get to question Sessions and Trump Jr. — which the Post notes is still "unlikely" — they'd reportedly ask the men to clarify what they knew about any existing opposition research Russia had compiled on Hillary Clinton, then the Democratic presidential rival to Donald Trump. For their part, several House Republicans have claimed that their Democratic counterparts are overstepping the boundaries of the investigation: Last week, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) quipped that the list of interviewees assembled by the Democrats includes "pretty much any character in any Dostoevsky or Tolstoy novel."
Read the full story at The Washington Post.