WORLDWIDE THREATS, PART TWO

The nation’s top intelligence leaders faced sharp political questions during a House hearing on global security threats, with lawmakers as focused on rehashing issues from the Trump era as future threats.

The tone was set early when House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) opened the hearing by severely criticizing committee Democrats for steps taken against former President Trump over the past several years, and claiming intelligence officials had not testified over the past two years due to these actions.

“The real reason Trump officials didn’t want to participate is that for years the committee’s Democrats hijacked our open hearings to advance their conspiracy theories that the Trump administration was filled with Russian agents who colluded with Putin to hack the 2016 elections,” Nunes said.

Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) stressed by comparison in his opening remarks that it was “important to speak truth to power,” even if “intelligence assessments prove politically inconvenient.”

A key issue were concerns around both Russian and Chinese malicious cyber activity against the U.S., particularly as the hearing was held the same day the Biden administration announced sanctions against Russia in retaliation for the SolarWinds hack and Russian election interference.