House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz said he doesn’t plan to launch a probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn Tuesday.
Flynn stepped down from his post late Monday evening after it was revealed he misled Vice President Mike Pence about a call he had with the Russian ambassador discussing the country’s sanctions.
Chaffetz said he believes Flynn was right to resign, adding an investigation would just be under the jurisdiction of the House Intelligence Committee.
“I think that situation has taken care of itself, I know that the Intel Committee was looking into the hacking issue previously, so I think he did the right thing by stepping down,” he told reporters. “When we get into sources and methods it really is the purview of the Intel Committee — they are the only ones that can look at that kind of information, particularly when you are look at the interactions with a nation-state like that.”
GOP Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, a chairman of the moderate Tuesday Group, said he would like to see more information on the topic before determining if an independent investigation is necessary.
“I’d like to find out what the facts are, I don’t know the facts — all I know is what I’ve read in the media,” he told reporters. “I’ll have the opportunity to see the vice president today and I’ll raise the issue with him.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan, a self-proclaimed Russia hawk, said the Trump administration is not the first to try to repair relations with Russia, praising the president for his call for Flynn to resign. Ryan echoed Dent in saying he thinks it’s premature to determine whether an independent probe is needed.
“I think the administration will explain the circumstances that led to this and the Intelligence Committee has been looking into this thing all along, by the way, just in respect to Russia,” he told reporters. ” I think that it’s really important that as soon as they realized they were being misled by the national security advisers they asked for his resignation — I can’t speak to the rest of the circumstances. I think we need to get all of that information before we prejudge anything.”
Dent said he would like to see the administration’s policies on Russia veer to where the United States has stood on the issue in the past.
“I hope with his departure we will move to a more traditional policy on Russia, the one that has been embraced by both parties over the last several years — since the second World War,” he said.
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