History
Prior to establishing the permanent select committee in 1977, the House of Representatives established the "Select Committee on Intelligence", commonly referred to as the "Pike Committee", so named after its last chairman, Otis G. Pike of New York. The select committee had originally been established in February 1975 under the chairmanship of Congressman Lucien Nedzi of Michigan. Following Nedzi's resignation in June, the committee was reconstituted with Pike as chair, in July 1975, with its mandate expiring January 31, 1976. Under Pike's chairmanship, the committee investigated illegal activities by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
The final report of the Pike Committee was never officially published due to Congressional opposition. However, unauthorized versions of the draft final report were leaked to the press. CBS News reporter Daniel Schorr was called to testify before Congress, but refused to divulge his source. [2] Major portions of the report were published by The Village Voice , and a full copy of the draft was published in England.
During the 1980s the HPSCI worked to acquire access to covert action notifications of the CIA, as well as to strengthen the role of the committee in intelligence agency funding. Under the Reagan administration, the HPSCI and United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) worked with Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey on what was known as the "Casey Accords". The accords required that covert action findings were to be accompanied by "scope papers" that included a risk/gain assessment of each such activity. However, the deal was not acceptable to the HPSCI, and after the Iran–Contra affair, more pressure was placed on strengthening the oversight of committees. [3]
In 2017, the committee was tasked along with the SSCI to evaluate the degree of Russian interference in the 2016 US elections. [4] The committee was also investigating allegations of wiretapping of Donald Trump, as well as ties between Russian officials and members of Trump's presidential campaign. [5] [6] The committee came under intense scrutiny in 2017 and 2018 due to allegations of partisanship and leaks of classified information by members and their staff. In March 2018, the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections was abruptly ended by the committee's Republican members despite the assertion by Democratic members that the investigation was incomplete and had failed to gather pertinent information. Notably, House Intelligence Republicans released a draft of their investigatory report which contradicted some findings of the U.S. Intelligence Community and was written without the input of House Democrats. [7] [8] In March 2018, after further disagreements, Republican committee member Tom Rooney claimed that the committee had "lost all credibility" and had become "a political forum for people to leak information to drive the day's news." [9]
With the change of party leadership in the House in the 116th United States Congress, the committee launched a probe of Trump's finances and Russian ties in February 2019. [10] In June 2019, in the course of hearings on the national security implications of climate change, the White House blocked the submission of a statement by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research Office of the Geographer and Global Issues, and the analyst who wrote the statement, Rod Schoonover, resigned. [11] [12]
Devin Gerald Nunes is an American businessman and politician who serves as the Chair of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board since January 20, 2025, and as chief executive officer of the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG). Before resigning from the House of Representatives and joining TMTG, Nunes was first the U.S. representative for California's 21st congressional district from 2003 to 2013, and then California's 22nd congressional district from 2013 to 2022.
The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is dedicated to overseeing the United States Intelligence Community—the agencies and bureaus of the federal government of the United States that provide information and analysis for leaders of the executive and legislative branches. The Committee was established in 1976 by the 94th Congress.
The U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. Its responsibilities include U.S. security legislation and oversight of the Department of Homeland Security.
The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the main investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. The committee's broad jurisdiction and legislative authority make it one of the most influential and powerful panels in the House. Its chair is one of only three in the House with the authority to issue subpoenas without a committee vote or consultation with the ranking member. However, in recent history, it has become practice to refrain from unilateral subpoenas.
The United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States was ordained by President Gerald Ford in 1975 to investigate the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies within the United States. The Presidential Commission was led by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, from whom it gained the nickname the Rockefeller Commission.
The Hughes–Ryan Amendment was an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, passed as section 32 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974. The amendment was named for its co-authors, Senator Harold E. Hughes (D–IA) and Representative Leo Ryan (D–CA). The amendment required the President of the United States to report all covert actions of the Central Intelligence Agency to one or more Congressional committees.
Otis Grey Pike was an American lawyer and politician who served nine terms as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from New York, from 1961 to 1979.
The Pike Committee is the common name for the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence during the period when it was chaired by Democratic Representative Otis G. Pike of New York. Under Pike's chairmanship, the committee investigated illegal activities by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the National Security Agency (NSA). The Committee conducted much of its investigation, while the U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, chaired by Senator Frank Church and informally known as the "Church Committee," conducted its own investigation. Unlike the report of the investigation of the Church Committee, which was eventually released to the public in the face of Executive Branch opposition to its release, the report of the investigation by the Pike Committee was suppressed from release to the American public, although portions of it were leaked and it was eventually published abroad.
United States Intelligence Community Oversight duties are shared by both the executive and legislative branches of the government. Oversight, in this case, is the supervision of intelligence agencies, and making them accountable for their actions. Generally oversight bodies look at the following general issues: following policymaker needs, the quality of analysis, operations, and legality of actions.
John Lee Ratcliffe is an American politician and attorney who has served as the ninth director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) since 2025. He previously served as the sixth director of national intelligence from 2020 to 2021 and served in the United States House of Representatives from 2015 to 2020.
Ten investigations were conducted into the 2012 Benghazi attack, six of these by Republican-controlled House committees. Problems were identified with security measures at the Benghazi facilities, due to poor decisions made by employees of the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, and specifically its director Eric Boswell, who resigned under pressure in December 2012. Despite numerous allegations against Obama administration officials of scandal, cover-up and lying regarding the Benghazi attack and its aftermath, none of the ten investigations found any evidence to support those allegations. The last of the investigation committees issued its final report and shut down in December 2016, one month after the 2016 presidential election.
The Democratic National Committee cyber attacks took place in 2015 and 2016, in which two groups of Russian computer hackers infiltrated the Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer network, leading to a data breach. Cybersecurity experts, as well as the U.S. government, determined that the cyberespionage was the work of Russian intelligence agencies.
The Russian government conducted foreign electoral interference in the 2016 United States elections with the goals of sabotaging the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to the U.S. intelligence community, the operation—code named Project Lakhta—was ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The "hacking and disinformation campaign" to damage Clinton and help Trump became the "core of the scandal known as Russiagate". The 448-page Mueller Report, made public in April 2019, examined over 200 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.
This is a timeline of major events in first half of 2018 related to the investigations into links between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials and spies that are suspected of being inappropriate, relating to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8, the transition, and the first and second halves of 2017, but precedes the second half of 2018, the first and second halves of 2019, 2020, and 2021. These events are related to, but distinct from, Russian interference in the 2018 United States elections.
Since 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and his allies have promoted several conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal. One such theory seeks to blame Ukraine, instead of Russia, for interference in the 2016 United States presidential election. Also among the conspiracy theories are accusations against Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, and several elements of the right-wing Russia investigation origins counter-narrative. American intelligence believes that Russia engaged in a years long campaign to frame Ukraine for the 2016 election interference, that the Kremlin is the prime mover behind promotion of the fictitious alternative narratives, and that these are harmful to the United States. FBI director Christopher A. Wray stated to ABC News that "We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election" and that "as far as the [2020] election itself goes, we think Russia represents the most significant threat."
Joseph Vincent Cuffari is an American government administrator who has been the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security since 2019.
Andrew P. Bakaj is a Washington, D.C. attorney and former intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency. He was the principal attorney representing the whistleblower who filed the initial complaint that led to the launch of multiple investigations by the United States Congress into the Trump–Ukraine scandal, the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, and, ultimately, the first impeachment of Donald Trump.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 is a United States federal law which specifies the budget, expenditures and policies of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for fiscal year 2020. Analogous NDAAs have been passed in previous and subsequent years. The NAA passed the House by a vote of 377–48 and the Senate by a vote of 86–8 and became effective on December 20, 2019, when it was signed into law by President Donald Trump.
This is a timeline of major events in second half of 2019 related to the investigations into the myriad links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies that are suspected of being inappropriate, relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8, and the transition, the first and second halves of 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and the first half of 2019, but precedes that of 2020 and 2021.
