- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is urging House Speaker Paul Ryan to stop Trump allies from hindering the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Russia’s meddling in the US election.
- Pelosi said in a Thursday letter to Ryan: “Political haste must not cut short valid investigatory threads” related to the probe, which followed an assessment from US intelligence officials earlier this year who confirmed Russia interfered in the 2016 election to boost Donald Trump.
- A growing chorus of Trump allies have publicly criticized the federal Russia investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller. Some Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee have also earned scrutiny over the direction of that panel’s investigation.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is asking House Speaker Paul Ryan to allow the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Russia’s election-meddling to continue unimpeded.
A letter from Pelosi to Ryan on Friday said “Democrats are deeply concerned by the Majority’s efforts to curtail the House Intelligence Committee investigation and its overall failure to address Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.”
“The American people deserve a comprehensive and fair investigation into Russia’s attacks,” the letter read. “Political haste must not cut short valid investigatory threads. Key questions about foreign interference in our elections remain, and must be thoroughly investigated.”
The letter follows recently amplified attacks on the Russia investigation, which have largely come from Republicans closely aligned with President Donald Trump, who himself has also publicly sought to diminish the probe.
House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes came under scrutiny earlier this year for, at times, seeming to run defense on behalf of the Trump administration. The committee has also been mired in bipartisan infighting and Democrats this summer accused Nunes of “going rogue.“
The US intelligence community published initial findings in January that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in order to boost Trump. That assessment was later bolstered as federal and congressional investigations evolved. The scope of Russian influence in the US became even clearer after special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to oversee the federal Russia probe in May.
In recent months, allies of Trump — some of whom participate in the congressional committees conducting Russia investigations — have publicly cast doubt on the veracity of Russian meddling and have raised concerns about political bias on Mueller’s investigative team. US intelligence officials have pushed back forcefully against those attacks.
