Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, on Thursday hit out at House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., for holding a public hearing as a “publicity stunt,” and ignoring the allegations of abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
“If this was a key hearing, why was it done in an unclassified setting. If it’s a key hearing, it should have been done in a classified setting where we can discuss classified and sensitive material,” Wenstrup told “Fox & Friends.”
Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee boycotted a public hearing of the panel’s Subcommittee on Strategic Technologies and Advance Research on Wednesday, accusing Schiff of leading the committee “far from its mandate of overseeing the Intelligence Community,” and of ignoring “numerous critical issues pertinent to this Committee’s jurisdiction.”
In a letter from GOP Reps. Devin Nunes of California and Chris Stewart of Utah, who are the ranking members of the committee and the subcommittee, they accused Schiff of ignoring a report from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz that found “seventeen serious shortcomings related to the conduct” of the federal investigators who applied for FISA warrants for surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
“Our problem right now is why have we not had the inspector general in to talk about the FISA abuse,” Wenstrup said.
“Adam Schiff does not want the inspector general to come in and brief us. The Senate has done it and we have not had the opportunity to get with the inspector general to discuss this,” he added.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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