In the spirit of transparency and sharing, Democratic Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Richard Blumenthal want to send a gift to Special Counsel Robert Mueller:
Two Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday pressed the committee's Republican chairman to provide special counsel Robert Mueller with transcripts of the panel's interviews with key witnesses in its Russia probe, including Donald Trump Jr.
Democrats aren’t anxious to give up Junior’s testimony because it was enlightening and full of information that Mueller might not have seen elsewhere. It’s more that they’d like the special counsel to get a look at the story Eric’s brother has been trying to sell when he’s not in front of a grand jury.
It also amounted to a suggestion that witnesses — potentially including Donald Trump Jr., who sat for an interview in September — may have made false statements to the committee. In a recent interview, Blumenthal predicted the Trump Jr. transcript would be “explosive” if released.
It’s a good bet that when Junior Trump’s testimony explodes, several other members of the campaign and transition team are likely to be in the shrapnel zone—including that guy who authored a fake excuse for the Trump Tower meeting while munching KFC on Air Force One.
The biggest surprise so far is that Grassley has making noises about being cooperative—though he insists he needs to “confer” with other Republicans on the committee before anything can be released. That may seem promising, but since Grassley is the same guy who recently pushed charges against Christopher Steele for the crime of passing on information about Donald Trump … don’t get too hopeful.
Grassley and Graham’s letter charging Steele with lying is the prototype for the Devin Nunes #ReleaseTheMemo memo.
While they make the allegation publicly in the letter, the details of Steele's potential lying are contained within an attached document marked classified. In other words, they are suggesting Steele may have lied, but don't say what he might have lied about.
And indeed, it would be impossible for them to do so, given their accusation is apparently based upon his interviews with the FBI, which were recently shared with the Judiciary Committee and aren't public. But the point here is that they made the allegation of Steele's lying public.
Nunes is using exactly the same technique in his memo—write up an attack on someone, base that attack on classified information, then publicly release the attack, while stating that you regretfully can’t release the supporting documents. Golly gosh, the public will just have to make do with your word on what those documents say. This is, apparently, the new standard in Republican document production.
But Democrats aren’t proposing to create a draft of Junior’s testimony, or write a memo on Junior’s testimony. They’re proposing to release the testimony.
Beyond their request that Mueller receive Judiciary Committee transcripts, both Whitehouse and Blumenthal have said in recent interviews that they would like to see the transcript of the panel's interview with the president's eldest son get publicly released.
The actual documents, vs. a spin on those documents. That’s a huge difference.