House Russia Probe Leader Distinguishes 'Collusion' From 'Evidence Of Collusion'
By Matt Shuham | March 18, 2018 12:24 pm
The Republican leader of the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia probe gave inconsistent answers during an interview Sunday regarding whether the committee investigated potential collusion between the Trump campaign in Russia.
At one point, Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX) distinguished between “evidence” of collusion and collusion itself. “That’s a different statement,” he told NBC’s Chuck Todd. “We found no evidence of collusion.”
Conaway, who took over leadership of the probe after committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) became the subject of an ethics investigation, announced last week that he was ending the fact-gathering stage of the probe and sending a draft report to committee Democrats for their review.
Among the conclusions listed on a one-page summary of Republicans’ draft: “We have found no evidence of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians.” Conaway seemed to back away from that claim Sunday.
In his interview with the Republican congressman, Todd asked whether ousted FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s closed-door testimony before the committee in December had backed up ousted FBI Director James Comey’s contention that Comey was fired because of the Russia probe.
“It’s been a while since I sat through that testimony, I haven’t read it recently,” Conaway said.
He continued, tellingly: “We were focused not so much on that, because that feeds into the collusion issue, and our committee was not charged with answering the collusion idea, so we really weren’t focused on that direction.”
“No evidence of collusion,” Conaway said later, repeating a point that Democrats on the committee have said was not sufficiently investigated. Committee Ranking Member Adam Schiff (D-CA) said separately Sunday that Democrats will “certainly be able to show the facts supporting the issue of collusion,” and he’s previously said committee Democrats will release their own report on the probe.
“No evidence of collusion,” Todd repeated back to Conaway. “But if you’re not investigating collusion, then you haven’t sought the evidence.”
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