WASHINGTON -- House Republicans boycotted an Intelligence Committee hearing Wednesday.
Representative Devin Nunes, the panel's ranking Republican, complained in a letter to Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff that under his leadership the committee "has strayed far from its mandate of overseeing the intelligence community."
The Democratic-run Intelligence Committee was central to the investigation that led to President Donald Trump's impeachment by the House, and Schiff was the lead prosecutor during the Senate trial. Although Nunes doesn't mention the impeachment fight, he wrote that "it is concerning that you prioritize publicity events rather than the more productive work that occurs in the committee's classified space."
The letter also was signed by Rep. Chris Stewart, the top Republican on the subcommittee on Strategic Technology and Advanced Research that is holding the hearing "on the potential uses of next-generation technology for U.S. national security."
"We hope this committee can move past political investigations and publicity stunts and get back to the important work we have traditionally taken on a bipartisan basis," the Republicans' letter said.
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., who is chairman of the Intelligence subcommittee, said that the real reason Republicans were boycotting the hearing was the feud over Nunes' phone records.
Schiff included in the trial evidence phone records showing that Nunes had been in contact with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his indicted associate Lev Parnas at the same time the former New York mayor was trying to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden in Ukraine.
"This letter is a reversal of what I was told last week," Himes said Wednesday. He called the explanation from Nunes and Stewart "as wrong-headed as it is mendacious."
A Section on 02/13/2020