Under pressure from the DNI, which we told you about earlier today, Shifty Schiff has finally agreed to release the transcripts. But in classic Shifty Schiff form, he’s not taking any blame for their delay:
DC EXAMINER – House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff is moving to release dozens of witness transcripts from the panel’s Russia investigation after the nation’s spy chief said he would release them to end a two-year delay.
Schiff, who took over the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence following the 2018 midterm elections, pinned the blame on acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell and his office for the lengthy standoff.
“After more than a year of unnecessary delay, the ODNI has finally concluded its protracted classification review of the Committee’s transcripts, and it also appears the White House has now abandoned its improper insistence on reviewing key transcripts, which the Committee appropriately rejected,” a Schiff spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday. “This process had already taken far too long, most notably because the ODNI improperly held up the declassification review and release of several transcripts at the request of the White House.”
Ridiculous. As we told you earlier today, 43 of the transcripts were declassified and ready for public release back in July of 2019, almost a year ago. There were only 10 others which were still being worked on. Schiff could have released those a long time ago. As the Examiner notes, “he had not released them despite promising last fall to make them public quickly.”
We all know why Schiff is releasing them now. Acting DNI Richard Grenell essentially threatened to release them if Schiff continued to block them, and Schiff has no option at this point but to release them.
All of this posturing by Shifty Schiff in blaming the ODNI for HIS stonewalling is simply to safe face, but it’s not working because we know the truth.