While special counsel Robert Mueller continues to work his way up the chain of Trump-related staffers, there are three other investigations of the relationship between Russian officials and the Trump campaign supposedly still underway. However, none of them seems likely to produce even a strongly-worded letter, much less an indictment.
All three committees looking into Russian interference — one in the House, two in the Senate — have run into problems, from insufficient staffing to fights over when the committees should wrap up their investigations. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s inquiry has barely started, delayed in part by negotiations over the scope of the investigation. Leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, while maintaining bipartisan comity, have sought to tamp down expectations about what they might find.
Least likely to do thing one: The House Intelligence Committee. At first, that committee was headed by Devin Nunes, who used the position to skulk around the White House and launch contradictory investigations so ludicrous he eventually had to recuse himself from his own investigation—though he’s constantly threatened to return. Now that committee is headed by a trio of Republicans including Trey ‘Benghazi’ Gowdy, most recently seen advising a witness on just what a mockery his leadership turns out to be.
Representative Trey Gowdy, who spent nearly three years investigating Hillary Clinton’s culpability in the deadly 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, was growing frustrated after two hours. You are in an unwinnable situation, Mr. Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican, counseled Mr. Kushner. If you leave now, Democrats will say you did not answer all the questions. If you stay, they will keep you here all week.
Unbelievably, though Gowdy is not even pretending to conduct an actual investigation, that’s still a step up from Nunes’ active interference.
Meanwhile, in the Senate … pretty much nothing is happening.
Actions on the Senate side of the hill began with great declarations of bipartisan cooperation. But over time it’s become obvious this does not extend to questioning, where Republicans have routinely taken visits with Trump staffers as opportunities to make it clear that no one in the White House should have any fear of genuine scrutiny.
Nine months into the Trump administration, any notion that Capitol Hill would provide a comprehensive, authoritative and bipartisan accounting of the extraordinary efforts of a hostile power to disrupt American democracy appears to be dwindling.
Republican Sen. Richard Burr recently came out to show that the Senate Intelligence Committee is going to produce little more than statistics about all the pages handed over to them, along with excuses for not investigating the truth of those pages. They’re going to wade through a mile of smoke … but make no determination of fire.
The Judiciary Committee investigation is likely to continue to languish—unless Trump decides that there are Democrats he’d like them to call—acting only as a me-too to the Intelligence Committee and waiting to put a stamp on the results of other investigations. The one area where they may focus is the firing of James Comey and other acts that interfere with the investigation, though all of that it likely to be dealt with more quickly by Mueller’s team.
There’s still some chance that the Intelligence Committee may produce something of value. After all, both Burr and Democratic Sen. Mark Warner made it clear that the committee was not yet ready to say that there had been no collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Russian officials. On the other hand, the committee has made several agreements with Trump officials that allowed them to testify only in private and even then within strict limits, and Burr also announced that they were not going forward with any investigation of the Steele Dossier, even though the information they did check had turned out to be accurate.
Overall, the outcome of the Senate Intelligence Committee can be expected to be:
- A confirmation of the well-established information that Russia attempted to interfere with the election, including efforts to penetrate state voter databases and use of social media. This confirmation can be expected to result in suggestions for better protection in the future, but little else.
- Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort are likely to catch some harsh words—more related to their lobbying activities than to the Trump campaign. However, the Senate is unlikely to deliver up anything more than a note to Mueller when it comes to criminal charges.
And … that’s about it.
Anything else that happens is going to have to come from Mueller.