House Intel Committee Hearings On Russia Canceled Same Day Sally Yates Set To Testify

Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announces the settlement with Volkswagen during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Tuesday, June 28, 2016. Volkswagen will spend more than $15 billion to settle consumer lawsuits and government allegations that it cheated on emissions tests in what lawyers are calling the largest auto-related class-action settlement in U.S. history. (AP Photo/J. David Ake)

And to further add to the things that just carry bad optics, there’s this.

Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates was set to testify at the House Intelligence Committee hearing on Russia, but the White House objected.

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The response of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes was to cancel the hearing.

Nunes is already under fire by Democrats who would like to see him recuse himself from these hearings, and for good reason.

Part of the hearings involve President Trump’s claims that Trump Tower was wiretapped by former President Obama.

While no one in the intelligence community, or in the Senate have seen any evidence to back that up, Nunes called a press conference after the hearings began and claimed to have seen evidence that members of Trump’s team had been “incidentally surveilled,” as in, mentioned by someone actually under surveillance.

Nunes only spoke with the president about this information and has refused to show anything he has to anyone working with him on the committee.

On Monday, it was revealed that he was on White House grounds the day before his press conference, supposedly to discuss this evidence with his source in a secure location.

As for Yates:

After she was fired, it was revealed that Yates had notified the White House that then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had not properly explained his contact with the Russian ambassador, according to a report published Tuesday in The Washington Post.

Flynn was later fired over the incident.

The Post report cites documents showing that the Justice Department told Yates that her testimony would have to be seriously limited because of executive privilege, which protects executive branch documents and information from having to be turned over in certain cases.

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An official from the Department of Justice sent letters to Yates’ attorney, stating that her testimony would be limited, because she needed consent from the White House to discuss any conversations she’d had with them.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has said that any reports that say the White House has prevented Yates from testifying are false.

Democrats, on the other hand, feel that Nunes has compromised the entire investigation and that the cancelation of the scheduled hearings is a cover up.

There are calls from the left for Nunes to step down, but so far, he has refused.

 

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