On Friday, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) went on Fox News and tried to justify the decision made by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee to end the committee’s Russia probe and release a final report. It did not go well.
Wenstrup argued there is no further need to investigate the Trump campaign, because while a top White House official may have admitted under oath to lying, all she copped to were “white lies.”
“Look at the Hope Hicks situation,” Wenstrup said, referring to the former White House communications director who resigned shortly after testifying before the House Intelligence Committee in late February. “They had her for nine hours in there, only to go put out that she may have told some white lies for the president, such as, saying he couldn’t come to the phone when maybe indeed he could have.”
It’s far from clear, however, whether Hicks’ lies were limited to ones about the president’s availability. She refused to answer specific questions about her work in the White House, as well as her role in the firing of then-FBI director James Comey and in drafting a misleading statement about a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between top Trump campaign officials and a Kremlin-connected lawyer who promised dirt on Hillary Clinton.
While Wenstrup isn’t curious about any of that, in the next breath he called for more scrutiny on leakers, like whoever informed the press about Hicks’ testimony.
Referring to the possibility that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper leaked information to the press, Wenstrup said, “We need to have concerns, especially when it concerns people in high office that are to be trusted.”
House Intelligence Committee Republicans concluded their investigation without finding any evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia. Contradicting the findings of the intelligence community and indictments made by special counsel Robert Mueller, Republicans on the committee say they haven’t seen enough evidence to even conclude that Russia was trying to help Trump during the 2016 election.
The position is nearly impossible to defend given what we know about the disinformation campaign waged by Russian cutouts using emails stolen by Russian hackers during the 2016 campaign. Republicans have resorted to an increasingly desperate position to justify it.
House Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) recently cited talking points that were debunked last summer to dismiss the idea that the Trump campaign did anything untoward, while Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) has gone as far as to question the concept of cause and effect — arguing that while he accepts that the Russians wanted to discredit Hillary Clinton, that doesn’t necessary mean they wanted to help Trump.