Embattled committee chairman recuses himself from House probe on Russia

WASHINGTON – House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., temporarily recused himself Thursday from all matters related to the committee's ongoing probe into Russian interference in the presidential election, as House investigators look into ethics charges against him.

The House Ethics Committee released a statement Thursday saying it had "determined to investigate" allegations that "Nunes may have made unauthorized disclosures of classified information, in violation of House Rules, law, regulations, or other standards of conduct."

Nunes denied the charges as "entirely false and politically motivated," blaming "several leftwing activist groups" for filing complaints with the Office of Congressional Ethics. Nunes said his recusal – which only applies to the committee's Russia investigation – would be in effect while the House Ethics Committee looks into the matter, noting that he had asked to speak with that committee "at the earliest possible opportunity in order to expedite the dismissal of these false claims."

In the meantime, Nunes said, Rep. K. Michael Conaway, R-Texas, will take the lead on the Russia investigation, with assistance from Reps. Thomas J. Rooney, R-Fla., and Trey Gowdy, R-S.C. – who also sits on the Ethics Committee.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., said Thursday that he does not think Nunes did anything wrong, but "fully support[s] his decision."

"Chairman Nunes wants to make sure he is not a distraction to this very important investigation," Ryan added.

Nunes came under fire in recent weeks for going to the White House grounds to meet with a secret source and view documents he said suggest that President Donald Trump and his transition team members' identities may have been improperly revealed in reports on surveillance of foreign targets. Nunes, who served on Trump's transition team, did not alert the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee before making the trip, or before briefing the press and Trump the next day about what he saw.

Democrats have accused Nunes of coordinating with the White House about those reports, and suggested that in talking about them publicly, he might have released classified information. On March 28, the heads of advocacy groups Democracy 21 and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics asking investigators to launch an inquiry into whether Nunes disclosed classified information. It is not clear if that letter inspired the inquiry.

Democrats have also accused Nunes of coordinating with the White House about the witnesses appearing before the committee, after he canceled a planned open hearing with former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., former CIA director John Brennan, and former acting attorney general Sally Yates. The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration had sought to prevent Yates from testifying.

Elsewhere in Congress, GOP members applauded Nunes for stepping away from the probe and heralded the decision as one that could help heal divisions in the House Intelligence Committee and put their investigation back on course.

"The biggest mistake was not consulting with the Democrats," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said. "You have to do that if you're going to be successful around here, especially on national security issues."

"There's still a lot of broken trust . . . it's too big of an issue not to have everybody work in a professional, serious way to be able to resolve this," said Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "At the end of it, everybody's got to trust the outcome."

Stewarding the House's investigation now falls to Conaway, 68, who also serves as chairman of the House Agriculture Committee and has a reputation on Capitol Hill as a quiet and diligent lawmaker. Conaway pledged to conduct the investigation "in a very strong, workmanlike manner, expeditiously" – and to "working with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to get it done."

But Conaway is also a Trump supporter, and on various occasions, has sought to sow doubt about the intelligence community's conclusion that Russia meddled in the 2016 elections with the intention of helping Trump's candidacy.

A major part of both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees' probes involves potential links between members of Trump's campaign and transition teams and Russian officials. But when FBI Director James B. Comey and NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers endorsed that finding before the House Intelligence Committee in an open hearing last month, Conaway questioned the intelligence community's rationale and logic behind that conclusion.

"The logic is that because [Putin] really didn't like presidential candidate [Hillary] Clinton that he automatically liked Trump?" Conaway asked Comey, noting that "that might work on Saturday afternoon when my wife's [Texas Tech] Red Raiders are playing the Texas Longhorns," but suggesting such logic would not apply "all the rest of the time."

"It's based on more than that," Comey retorted, defending that logic by continuing the football metaphor. "Whoever the Red Raiders are playing, you want the Red Raiders to win, by definition you want their opponents to lose."

In the past, Conaway has also suggested that if Congress wants to probe foreign interference in the 2016 election, it should also look into how "Harry Reid and the Democrats brought in Mexican soap opera stars, singer and entertainers who had immense influence" getting out the vote in Las Vegas.

"Those are foreign actors, foreign people, influencing the vote in Nevada," Conaway told the Dallas Morning News in January. He also argued that Mexican entertainers should be as troubling as Russian cyberhacking and propaganda dissemination because "it's foreign influence. If we're worried about foreign influence, let's have the whole story."

Helping Conaway is Gowdy, another intelligence committee member who has in the past, inspired criticism from Democrats for letting partisanship seep into investigations. That was particularly the case during the course of the Benghazi investigation, which Gowdy ran as chairman of a Select Committee looking into the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya in 2012.

Gowdy also sits on the House Ethics Committee, which is now investigating Nunes over allegations he may have disclosed classified information against House rules.

The House Ethics Committee's announcement it would look into the matter comes just over two weeks after Nunes' controversial visit to the White House grounds, and just 10 days after the Democracy 21 and CREW letter was sent to the Office of Congressional Ethics.

That is an uncommonly quick turnaround for the committee, which often waits until it receives a formal referral and report from the Office of Congressional Ethics before taking up an inquiry. The House Ethics Committee did not lay out a timeline during which it expected to complete an initial review.

In the meantime, Nunes pledged in his statement to "continue to fulfill all my other responsibilities as Committee Chairman" in matters unrelated to the Russia probe.

The ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), commended Nunes for stepping down "in the best interests of the committee, and I respect that decision."

He also said he welcomed Conaway's leadership of the investigation.

"The important work of investigating the Russian involvement in our election never subsided, but we have a fresh opportunity to move forward in the unified and nonpartisan way that an investigation of this seriousness demands," Schiff said.

In a statement, the House Ethics Committee cited its "institutional obligation" to investigate "unauthorized disclosures of classified information."

Mike DeBonis contributed to this report.