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Bannon, Lewandowski to testify on Russian interference in election

By Billy House, Bloomberg News
Published: January 14, 2018, 2:34pm

WASHINGTON — Steve Bannon and Corey Lewandowski are scheduled to testify this week in the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation of possible Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, and Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager, are part of a schedule that Democrats fear is being engineered by Republicans eager to end the investigation as soon as possible. Their appearances are voluntary, and they’ll meet with the committee in private, said officials from both parties familiar with the committee’s schedule.

Congressional interviews also were being sought for next week with FBI officials and a former top Department of Justice official. Some of those are expected to occur before the Intelligence Committee, while others as part of a separate House investigation into FBI handling of the Hillary Clinton email case in 2016.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said Thursday that he fears Republicans are hustling to wrap up the Kremlin election interference investigation after 10 months — in his opinion, prematurely.

“Republicans want to conduct just enough interviews to give the impression of a serious investigation,” Schiff said. He didn’t rule out Democrats compiling a separate minority report of the committee’s work if Republicans shut down the inquiry, rather than join in the writing of a unified, bipartisan report.

Committee Chairman Devin Nunes of California and Rep. Michael Conaway of Texas, whom Nunes has assigned to lead the panel’s Russia investigation, haven’t said when the investigation might be finishes. But Conaway has indicated that they don’t want to prolong the investigation much deeper into the midterm election year.

“While Mr. Schiff tries to distract from the serious, bipartisan review that’s been underway for nearly a year, we will stay focused on following the facts and working to safeguard the upcoming election,” AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, said in a statement.

Bannon hasn’t testified to any of the three congressional panels looking into Russia election meddling.

Intelligence Committee members said the timing of a Bannon interview wasn’t intended to be tied to his recent falling out with Trump, exacerbated by comments attributed to him in the book, “Fire and Fury” by Michael Wolff.

Trump tore into Bannon — nicknaming him “Sloppy Steve” — after excerpts emerged that said the strategist labeled as “treasonous” a 2016 meeting attended by Donald Trump Jr. and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner with Russian nationals. Stung by Trump, Bannon last week left his job as executive chairman of the conservative news site Breitbart News.

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