GOP Rep. Justifies Closing Down House Russia Probe Because Hope Hicks Only Told ‘White Lies’

Yesterday, the House Intelligence Committee voted along party lines to release the GOP members’ report on the committee’s investigation into Russian election meddling. The report, which has been rejected by Democrats, will claim that there is no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

While House Intel Democrats openly complain about Republicans shutting down the House probe, a GOP member of the committee appeared on Fox News and justified pulling the plug by invoking former White House communications director Hope Hicks testimony before the committee. And one wonders what point he was trying to make, considering Hicks said she told “white lies” for the president.

Telling host Sandra Smith that he felt Democrats just wanted to dig into the investigation “for the sake of digging into,” Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) brought up Hicks to make his case.

“Look at the Hope Hicks situation,” he said. “First of all, that was supposed to be closed and they had her nine hours only to put out she may have told white lies for the president such as saying he couldn’t come to the phone when maybe indeed he could have.”

Wenstrup continued, “This is what we’ve been dealing with for quite some time. I think when the public sees our report, which I think they eventually will, they’ll know we did a professional job and put that out there and we did our due diligence and the time has come to move upon if there’s something new that arises, we’ll deal with it.”

Wenstrup, however, immediately shifted to former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, stating that Clapper provided “inconsistent testimony” to the committee about his contacts with the media. He added that “we need to learn about these things,” seemingly indicating that the committee needs to investigate Clapper and others more thoroughly.

The GOP lawmaker then ended the interview by once again dismissing Hicks’ testimony, stating that there was “nothing there” and that it was “frustrating” to see Democrats ask her questions “over and over and over.”

Watch the clip above, via Fox News.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona

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