Reversing its earlier position, the White House will allow top Democrats to join Republicans for a briefing Thursday on a confidential FBI source who aided in the investigation of whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia, and Chief of Staff John F. Kelly will sit in on the discussions, the Justice Department announced.
After a day of furious negotiations and evolving public messages from the White House, the administration set two separate briefings with lawmakers to discuss the matter.
The first, at noon, will be for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), according to the Justice Department and Ryan’s office. The second, at 2 p.m., will be for Gowdy and the Gang of Eight, which includes the top Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate, as well as the top Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence committees, the Justice Department said.
A previous commitment prevented Ryan from attending the 2 p.m. briefing, spokeswoman AshLee Strong said.
The Justice Department said Kelly will attend both briefings — contradicting White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s assertion earlier this week that he would only broker the gathering. Sanders had also said previously that only Gowdy and Nunes would be briefed and that Democrats had been cut out because they had not asked for the information their Republican counterparts had.
[Republican lawmakers will review classified information on FBI source Thursday, White House says]
“To my knowledge, the Democrats have not requested that information, so I would refer you back to them on why they would consider themselves randomly invited to see something they’ve never asked to,” Sanders said Tuesday.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement Thursday morning: “While it’s a good thing that the Gang of Eight will be briefed, the separate meeting with a known partisan whose only intent is to undermine the Mueller investigation makes no sense and should be called off. What is the point of the separate briefing if not to cause partisan trouble?” Schumer was apparently referring to Nunes as a “known partisan.”
Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, as well as other FBI and Justice Department briefers and staff, will provide information at the meetings, the Justice Department said.
The stakes are high. President Trump and his conservative allies have made the confidential source the focal point of their latest line of attack against the Russia probe, alleging that the FBI implanted a spy in the Trump campaign for political purposes. The source, Stefan A. Halper, a former University of Cambridge professor and veteran of past GOP administrations, had contacts with three advisers to the campaign when Trump was running for president to discuss foreign policy.
Trump tweeted Thursday morning: “Large dollars were paid to the Spy, far beyond normal. Starting to look like one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history. SPYGATE - a terrible thing!”
Halper since 2012 has had contracts with the Defense Department, working for a Pentagon think tank called the Office of Net Assessment. According to federal records, ONA has paid Halper more than $1 million for research and development in the social sciences and humanities. He hired other academics and experts to conduct research and prepare reports, U.S. government officials told The Washington Post.
At Trump’s request, the Justice Department asked its inspector general on Sunday to explore the allegation of political spying. But that did little to allay the concerns of conservative lawmakers, who want to know more about Halper for themselves. Nunes, in particular, has been locked in a weeks-long battle with the Justice Department for materials on Halper. The department has so far been unwilling to turn over documents to Congress, citing concerns about Halper’s safety and worries about damaging the U.S.’s relationship with intelligence partners.
Trump could order the department to turn over documents, though some fear that could provoke a potentially catastrophic confrontation — with Justice Department leaders quitting in protest or refusing the order and forcing Trump to fire them. But in the past 24 hours, fears about the substance of the meeting have taken a back seat to political bickering about the guest list.
Democrats objected after Sanders announced Tuesday that they would not be invited, and a trio of influential Republicans — Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (Tex.) — also tried to push for access to the materials.
The Justice Department let the White House take the lead on arranging logistics, and initially, it seemed the Gang of Eight would be left out or briefed at a later date. Justice officials, though, knew they could not rightfully limit the materials to only Republicans, and at the very least, Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, would have to be briefed shortly after Nunes, a person familiar with the discussions said.
Late Wednesday night, those involved agreed on a briefing for Nunes and Gowdy, and then a briefing for the Gang of Eight immediately after. The first briefing is scheduled to take place at the Justice Department, the second on Capitol Hill, people familiar with the matter said.
Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.