INTL

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee aired complaints Thursday that testimony from Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III would be limited to two hours next week — meaning some members from both parties won’t get an opportunity to ask questions.

Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the committee’s top Republican, was among the members who described a format that would have Mueller leave to appear before the House Intelligence Committee, a smaller panel where all members are expected to have time to ask questions.

The House Intelligence Committee chairman has accepted a Justice Department offer to provide the panel with 12 categories of counterintelligence and foreign intelligence materials underlying the Mueller report.

As a result of the eleventh hour agreement, Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff canceled a Wednesday committee meeting where members were expected to vote on an “enforcement action” to compel Attorney General William Barr to comply with a sweeping subpoena. The committee was seeking the full report by special counsel Robert S. Mueller’s on his investigation into Russian election interference in 2016 and its underlying materials.

Updated 2:36 p.m. | Sen. Rick Scott has asked the FBI to provide a briefing to any interested senators on Russian intrusion into Florida voter files.

Scott, who was the governor of Florida, said the FBI confirmed to him on Wednesday that two counties had voter files accessed by Russia ahead of the presidential election in 2016.

Jared Kushner’s attempt to downplay Russian election interference has given Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer another reason to push for more sanctions against the country ahead of 2020.

In a new letter to members of the Senate Democratic caucus, the New York Democrat cited Kushner’s comments last week at the inaugural Time 100 Summit. 

If House lawmakers want to hear more from Attorney General William Barr about the status of the special counsel report, it looks like they will have to bring it up themselves.

Barr filed a written statement Monday with the House Appropriations Committee ahead of his testimony Tuesday that focuses on the Justice Department’s priorities for its $29.2 billion request for fiscal 2020 — and leaves out any mention of the Russia investigation.

Republicans have made House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff their new bogeyman as they run a victory lap over Attorney General William Barr’s report on the special counsel investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Republicans have called for Schiff to resign as chairman for repeatedly declaring he had seen evidence of collusion between Russia and President Donald Trump, including a claim that “there is more than circumstantial evidence.”

A bipartisan group of senators, led by members of the Intelligence Committee, want the Trump administration to prohibit electrical equipment made by Huawei from being used in the U.S. energy infrastructure.

The call for a ban on the components from the Chinese technology giant came in a letter dated Monday to Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, led by Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn.

Just three days after calling for cross-party unity in Washington, President Donald Trump on Friday again lashed out at House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, suggesting his sweeping probe of all things Trump is merely a partisan hit job.

The president used his Tuesday State of the Union address as a plea to Democrats to work with him and other Republicans to achieve legislative “greatness.” But just 16 hours later, he mockingly slammed the California Democrat after Schiff announced the panel would investigate Trump’s 2016 campaign, possible nefarious ties to Moscow and whether the former real estate mogul’s potential interest in financial gain has influenced his decisions as chief executive.

The House Intelligence Committee is scheduled to hold its initial organizational meeting of the year on Wednesday, but outside groups are claiming the closed meeting violates House rules.

House Rules require that business meetings be open to the public and the press, but allows a committee to vote to close the open session for a few specific reasons, including discussion of national security or law enforcement information.

China and Russia possess cyber technologies they will increasingly unleash on U.S. companies, the military, election systems and critical infrastructure, and that poses a significant threat to national security, Dan Coats told the Senate Intelligence panel in an annual hearing called the Worldwide Threat Assessment.

“At present, China and Russia pose the greatest espionage and cyberattack threats,” but other countries are catching up, the director of National Intelligence told the committee Tuesday.