The White House has revealed it is to end in-person briefings to congressional intelligence committees about foreign election interference, sparking accusations on Saturday that it was covering up Russian help for US President Donald Trump’s re-election.
The move comes two months ahead of the US presidential election, with Trump playing down the threat of foreign interference and accusing Democrats of leaking sensitive information.
“Probably Shifty Schiff, but others also, LEAK information to the Fake News,” Trump tweeted on Saturday, referring to US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff.
Photo: Bloomberg
He offered no evidence for the claim, which he has made several times during his presidency.
“No matter what or who it is about, including China, these deranged lowlifes like the Russia, Russia, Russia narrative. Plays better for them,” he added.
The US Congress would still have access to classified written reports, but lawmakers would no longer be able to question officials from the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) about what they learn.
Democrats in Congress reacted with fury, describing the move as “shameful” and accusing Trump of covering up Russian interference.
“As usual, President Trump is lying and projecting. Trump fired the last DNI [director of national intelligence] for briefing Congress on Russian efforts to help his campaign,” Schiff tweeted. “Now he’s ending briefings altogether. Trump doesn’t want the American people to know about Russia’s efforts to aid his re-election.”
Schiff and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called in a separate statement for the administration and intelligence community to resume the briefings.
“If they are unwilling to, we will consider the full range of tools available to the House to compel compliance,” they said.
US Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe wrote to the top lawmakers from both parties in the House and US Senate intelligence committees explaining the change, in a letter dated Friday, which was circulated in US media Saturday.
“I believe this approach helps ensure, to the maximum extent possible, that the information ODNI provides the Congress in support of your oversight responsibilities on elections security, foreign malign influence, and election interference is not misunderstood nor politicized,” he wrote. “It will also better protect our sources and methods and most sensitive intelligence from additional unauthorized disclosures or misuse.”
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said during a visit with Trump to hurricane-hit Louisiana and Texas that “the last time they gave briefings, a few members went out and talked to the press, disclosed information that they shouldn’t have disclosed.”
However, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner called the decision to stop in-person briefings an “unprecedented attempt to politicize an issue — protecting our democracy from foreign intervention — that should be non-partisan.”
Members of the US intelligence committee, as well as former FBI chief Robert Mueller, have said publicly that Moscow is reprising its 2016 campaign to help Trump win the election.
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