Senate Staffing, WH Obstruction Shows Why Russia Investigation Must Move Out Of Congress

The revelations of the past two days show us once again why the Russia investigation needs to move out of Congress and to an independent body with real subpoena power. Republicans in Congress by and large are colluding with the White House in covering up whatever coordination occurred between the Russians and the Trump campaign before and after the election. And the White House continues to lie about those contacts and hide information that would make those contacts clear.

Yesterday's revelations were about the one Intelligence Committee in Congress that was supposed to be functional but clearly is not. The Senate committee has no full time staffers assigned to the Russia investigation, just seven part-timers. None of those seven part-timers has any investigative experience nor are they lawyers. The investigation has held no interviews and issued no subpoenas, only requesting individuals and entities preserve documents. One reason that no subpoenas have been issued is because the Republican Chairman, Richard Burr, has refused Democrats' requests for those legal summons. Compare this pathetic level of staffing with the never-ending House investigation of Benghazi which had 46 full time staffers dedicated to the inquiry.

Today, we discovered that the White House has refused a request from the resuscitated House Intelligence Committee for documents related to Trump campaign adviser and former NSA Michael Flynn. The ranking Republican and Democratic members of the committee said that Flynn quite possibly broke the law by failing to disclose payments from foreign interests when he applied for his security clearance. The White House refusal is apparently based on three issues. The committee's request for documents while Flynn was NSA is overly broad, documents from the transition are not the responsibility of the White House, and the same goes for documents from the Trump campaign.

Republicans and the White House are determined to drag their heels on this investigation for as long as possible. We have already seen former House chairman Devin Nunes and current Senate chairman Richard Burr collude with the White House in deflecting and slowing the investigation. It will not get any better, which is why we must demand this investigation move outside of Congress to an independent investigative body with real subpoena power. That will take some doing. But it will not happen until Democrats start demanding it. And even if these demands are ignored, it will set the Democrats up for a useful campaign issue for taking back the House in 2018.