House Intelligence report on Russia probe had too much information redacted, critics say

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence report finding “no evidence” of collusion between President Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Kremlin has been met with criticism from Republicans who crafted it and Washington pundits who say far too much information in it has been redacted.

The product of a sprawling, yearlong investigation that split the committee along party lines, the 253-page document is packed with details.

But since its publication on Friday, questions are being raised across Washington about the reasons why names and entire passages in it were blacked-out in the name of national security.

Displeasure flowed directly from the House probe’s head, Rep. Mike Conaway, Texas Republican who said he was “extremely disappointed with the overzealous redactions” made by the intelligence agencies and called on officials to release more information.

There was also a matter of credibility, as he and other panel Republicans had pledged to be “as transparent as possible” with their investigation. Mr. Conaway said the report, as released, failed “to meet that standard.”

Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican and committee chairman, agreed that the omissions were “excessive and unjustified” and joined Mr. Conaway in vowing to publish a more transparent version soon.

During the probe, trust and transparency were major issues in the committee amid partisan warfare: Democrats objected to the Republicans’ final report so much that they released a 98-page rebuttal, which also includes redactions from the intelligence community.

Commenting on the full document over the weekend, analysts and pundits were quick to join Mr. Conaway in pointing out that many omissions include information that is already public, such as names of witnesses and previously declassified information.

Curiously, the redactions also appear to censor information that is well-known to anyone following the Russian election meddling saga.

Some have asked why the intelligence community chose to black out the names of Felix Sater, a Russia-born Trump associate who claimed to have deep connections in Moscow, and of Carter Page, a Trump campaign adviser, when the partially redacted passages about them are so obviously about them.

Both men have openly discussed much of what is in the report, and its “executive summary” even contains part of Mr. Page’s testimony to the committee, which already has been released publicly.

The Associated Press noted that odd passages were not redacted, including a portion of the report titled “Russia Attacks the United States.” All text in that section is obscured — except for one subhead that states “Attribution is a bear.”

What’s more, The Washington Post pointed out that in some instances, the report categorizes data as (U) for unclassified — but then blacked-out information.

A strange example occurs in a section about one of the investigation’s most contentious elements, the anti-Trump dossier written by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and funded by the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign. In a passage on allegations about illicit activities at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton hotel during a visit by Mr. Trump, the report cites testimony from Mr. Trump’s former head of security, whose name is blacked out.

However, Keith Schiller has occupied that role in Mr. Trump’s universe for more than a decade and is known to be the source who claimed the alleged illicit actions never occurred. Why then, The Post asked, was his name redacted? Especially since his name appears in the report’s footnotes as a witness who testified before the committee in November.