Clash with witness shows Nunes' drive to discredit dossier
Washington (CNN)Last
month, an attorney expressed his outrage with leaders of the House
Intelligence Committee: He demanded to know why a committee official
shared his client's secret testimony with another lawyer, a blatant
violation of the panel's rules.
Days
later, the committee instead sent a subpoena signed by Chairman Devin
Nunes demanding that the witness -- an associate to Sen. John McCain who
had met with ex-British agent Christopher Steele -- reappear before the
committee on short notice. News of the subpoena was reported by a
conservative media outlet just 10 minutes after the witness received it.
The
episode, which was described to CNN by four sources from both parties
with knowledge of the meeting and which has not been previously
reported, underscores the aggressive tactics Nunes and several of his
senior staffers have employed to undercut Steele's dossier of
allegations tying Donald Trump and his associates to Russia.
While
Nunes, R-California, has rallied Trump and many Republicans to his
cause by going after the FBI and Steele dossier, Democrats say he's
stifled similar efforts to obtain more information on Russia and Trump,
sitting on numerous requests for subpoenas, phone records and Democratic
demands to schedule witness interviews.
The
committee, instead, has issued subpoenas to the McCain associate and
the firm behind the Steele dossier, Fusion GPS. And led by Nunes, the
panel fought a lawsuit to secure Fusion GPS' bank records, quietly sent
two aides to try to track down Steele in London and threatened to hold
senior officials at the FBI and the Justice Department in contempt of
Congress for not turning over documents.
Nunes
has wielded this considerable influence despite not attending
classified hearings with witnesses after announcing last year he would
temporarily step aside from the investigation and handing the reins to
Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas. It all culminated in Nunes' controversial
memo alleging FBI and Justice Department misconduct in how it used the
Steele dossier to obtain a warrant to conduct surveillance on a Trump
adviser.
"The
chairman's efforts to put the government on trial, rather than conduct a
credible Russia investigation, have made our work exponentially more
difficult," said California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the
panel.
Republicans charge that
Schiff and the committee's Democrats are trying to extend the Russia
investigation into the 2018 campaign season, and they have expressed
their support of Nunes.
"The
Democrats are going to complain about everything we do. ... But you know
what, they don't get to decide that -- we do," said Florida Rep. Tom
Rooney, who is helping lead the committee's Russia investigation. "Nunes
hasn't told us 'no' for anything we've asked for."
Things
are so tense on the committee that Republican staff is weighing whether
to install a physical barrier to separate GOP and Democratic aides,
according to two sources familiar with the discussions.
"They're
going to have to start installing a shower in the (committee) SCIF so
we can feel normal after," Rep. Mike Quigley, an Illinois Democrat, said
after the committee's vote last week to release the Republican memo.
Approached
this week, Nunes said he wouldn't discuss committee business in the
halls of the Capitol. His spokesman declined to comment.
But
a GOP source on the panel said, "It's ironic that committee Democrats
appear to have leaked information in order to accuse Republicans of
leaking information."
The committee has long been plagued by accusations of leaks from both sides of the aisle.
Rooney
told CNN the Office of Congressional Ethics has sent letters to all of
the Republican committee staff of the House Intelligence Committee
related to leaks. A liberal advocacy group Campaign for Accountability
filed a complaint with OCE against Nunes and his staff, accusing them of
leaking information related to Fusion GPS. It's not clear if the
letters are tied to that complaint or if it will turn into a formal
investigation, and OCE will not comment publicly on its investigations.
The fight over the testimony of the McCain associate from January underscores the deepening tension.
The
witness, David Kramer, who went to work for McCain's think tank at
Arizona State University in 2014, has been in Nunes' sights after
revelations that he met with Steele in 2016. After the 2016 election,
Kramer and McCain, R-Arizona, met with a former British ambassador to
Russia who worked with Steele, according to court filings in the U.K.
That contact helped Kramer meet with Steele to review the ex-agent's
work in late November 2016, then Kramer worked with Fusion to obtain
hard copies of the dossier.
But
Kramer's attorney, Larry Robbins, raised grave concerns that the
committee was violating rules by disseminating private information about
Kramer's appearance before the panel.
Robbins
declined to comment for this story, as did Kramer, a former diplomat
and assistant secretary of state. Schiff also declined to comment about
Kramer's testimony.
But sources
familiar with the matter recounted that Robbins raised serious concerns
in a December 23 letter that another attorney whose client was a
committee witness had contacted him for his assistance. That attorney
recounted specific details from Kramer's testimony, Robbins told the
panel, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.
After
complaining about the matter, Kramer received a subpoena for his
appearance before the panel four days later. And 10 minutes after
receiving it, news broke in the conservative media that Kramer had been
issued a subpoena to reappear in January.
Compounding
the problems, Robbins had a medical appointment that initially posed a
conflict to meet the committee's demand for his appearance. And Kramer,
who had been in Florida, had to quickly catch a flight to Washington to
meet with the committee.
In the
January 10 hearing, Robbins lashed out at the committee for roughly 30
minutes, accusing Nunes' staff of conduct unbecoming of how attorneys
treat one another, sources said. And members of both parties privately
expressed alarmed at the situation. Conaway told Robbins he was
sympathetic to the concerns he had raised, multiple sources said.
Conaway
acknowledged Robbins' raised concerns but said that the committee
needed to complete its interview process. "I'm not going to second guess
our team," Conaway said. "We got it done. And it was an inconvenience
to the witness and to him but we got it done."
Conaway said he has confidence in Nunes as chairman.
"We're doing the Russia investigation -- he's got a lot of other committee business that's going on," Conaway said.
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