House Intelligence Committee meetings canceled this week

The House Intelligence Committee won’t be meeting this week.

Rep. Jim Himes, a member of the committee, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that the panel did not meet as planned on Monday and scrapped meetings that had been penciled in for Tuesday and Thursday.

The meetings were canceled amid an outcry from Democrats over the way that Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has handled the panel’s probe in Russia’s alleged involved in the U.S. election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

“So not only has this investigation sort of had a shadow cast over it, but the committee has been put into suspended animation,” Mr. Himes, Connecticut Democrat, said.

CNN first reported the meetings were canceled, and that Mr. Nunes plans to hold private briefings on Tuesday with FBI Director James B. Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rodgers.

Mr. Himes said that not a single member of the House Intelligence Committee has seen the documents that Mr. Nunes viewed during a visit to the White House grounds last week that led him to publicly announce that Mr. Trump or his aides might have been incidentally caught up in foreign surveillance by intelligence agencies.

“At this point, there is really one thing that needs to happen to rescue this investigation and that Chairman Nunes needs to recuse himself,” Mr. Himes said. “Unless he recuses himself from this investigation, it is hard to imagine how it can go forward.”