Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee dramatically boycotted a public hearing Wednesday morning, after accusing Chairman Adam Schiff of ignoring Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse following the release of a scathing Justice Department inspector general report which revealed significant misconduct.
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“Under your chairmanship, the House Intelligence Committee has strayed far from its mandate of overseeing the Intelligence Community. In fact, we have gone months at a time in which we’ve hardly held any oversight-related briefings or hearings at all,” they wrote Wednesday.
“During this period of inadequate oversight, numerous critical issues pertinent to this Committee’s jurisdiction were ignored,” they continued, noting that DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued his FISA report on Dec. 9 which identified “seventeen serious shortcomings related to the conduct” of the surveillance of former Trump campaign foreign policy aide Carter Page.
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“We hope this Committee can move past political investigations and publicity stunts and get back to the important work we traditionally have undertaken on a bipartisan basis,” they concluded.