The meeting would mark the first time since 2015 the panel, led by Adam Schiff, has held a bipartisan summit. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Cybersecurity Exclusive: House Intel leader seeks retreat to repair bitterly divided panel

The House Intelligence Committee will hold its first bipartisan summit in years with leaders of the U.S. intelligence community, a move to repair deep partisan acrimony created by the panel’s Russia investigation and rebuild trust between Capitol Hill and the clandestine community.

The move represents a departure from the recent past of the influential committee, which is expected to renew its investigation into Russian election interference and promises to play a more critical role in overseeing the Trump administration’s sprawling national security apparatus.


While the now Democrat-controlled panel has yet to hold an organizational meeting, committee staff has told member offices to reserve March 4 and March 5 for an overnight “off-site” session at an intelligence community agency or another site capable of handling classified discussions, sources who requested anonymity to talk about the upcoming event told POLITICO.

The meeting would mark the first time since 2015, when Rep. Devin Nunes became chairman, the panel has made such a sojourn. It’s one of several changes newly appointed committee Chairman Adam Schiff intends to make after a tumultuous two years when partisan bickering dominated the panel.

Schiff said he wanted to resurrect the tradition “both so that members can get a deeper understanding of what the agencies do, but also it’s one of the best opportunities for members to get to know each other in a social setting.”

“One of my goals is to try, if we can, to restore some comity between the members of the committee,” Schiff told POLITICO. “I hope through opportunities like that, as well as committee CODELS, we can get the members working together.”

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Typically, an “off-site” could mean anything from a witness interview or committee hearing to a briefing on various clandestine efforts or agency plans.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, for instance, has traveled at least twice as a group to CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., to review classified evidence on Russia’s involvement in the presidential election. The agency has also provided an office to the panel for use in its probe to save members and staffers the hassle of schlepping to and from the Hill with top-secret materials.

For the House panel, the summit traditionally featured a massive turnout from the clandestine community, with invitations to leaders of all intelligence community agencies and offices, including those within the armed service branches. Lawmakers notify attendees in advance about the topics they want more information on. Over a couple days and many meals together, department heads or the Director of National Intelligence present their own priorities and concerns to members.

It was a “getaway where you could really just focus on intelligence,” which helped the committee’s oversight and efforts to craft agency budgets, said Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), who served as the panel’s top Democrat from 2011 to 2015, recalling one meeting near the FBI academy in Quantico, Va.

The last known trip had been planned in early 2017 but was canceled for supposed logistical reasons. After it was canceled, Nunes made a secret visit to the White House grounds that March to view what he claimed was possible evidence of surveillance wrongdoing by the Obama administration. He briefed President Donald Trump on the material the next day, even though it came from high-level White House staffers who probably could have presented the information to the president themselves rather than first providing it to Nunes.

The behavior by Nunes and the White House only accelerated what would devolve into open partisan warfare over the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the presidential election, including the possibility of collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign. It effectively shattered the Intelligence Committee’s reputation for comity.

Nunes declined to answer questions from POLITICO about the upcoming and past meetings or why the 2017 summit was never rescheduled. His spokesperson, Jack Langer, said in a statement: “You’re seriously writing a story about this?”

The Russia probe — which Schiff has pledged to reopen and has reportedly begun to staff up for — “soaked up most all of the oxygen out of the system last time,” said Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), who led the investigation after Nunes temporarily stepped aside from the inquiry following his late night White House visit.

Conway, who was term-limited off the committee but hopes to receive a waiver to return, said “off-site” meetings are “terrific opportunities to learn some of the ins and outs” of the clandestine community. “It’s time well spent.”

In addition to the visit, Schiff said he is looking for other ways to make members bond.

Schiff said he had originally planned for the committee to travel overseas to the Munich Security Conference, but it conflicted with Democrats’ annual caucus retreat. Democrats would have had to meet Republicans overseas, flying from their home districts.

The “benefit of traveling together would have been lost," he said.

“We did an important job in keeping our oversight nonpartisan and apolitical throughout all of the Russia differences,” Schiff added. “But I would like to get to a more cordial footing … on all the issues of our jurisdiction. We’re going to do our best and hope that’s reciprocated.”

Rep. Joaquín Castro (D-Texas) predicted Schiff is “going to do his best to bring the committee together and do everything he can to help people work together well because we still have the Russia investigation, but the purview of the Intelligence Committee is also much broader than that.”

The retreat could also help repair relations between Congress and the intelligence community that have been fraying in recent years with the president and his Capitol Hill allies attacking agencies over the Russia investigation.

“There is going to be a real transition period when they try to regain the trust of the IC,” said Michael Bahar, a former Democratic staff director on the panel. “I know that sounds strange, but everything breaks down without trust. “

Intelligence officials “have to know” that they are being overseen fairly, he told POLITICO. “The fairer they feel they’re being treated, the more effective our oversight is” and the “less likely they are to hide things.”

Rep. Denny Heck (D-Wash.), the lone Democrat to join the panel in the last Congress, said the upcoming trip suggests a new sense of bipartisanship is returning to the panel.

“I don’t want to dwell on the past because I do see it as a constructive step forward, so let’s be forward-looking and forward-thinking about it,” he said. “It’s a good thing and we should consider it as such.”

However, Schiff’s vow to restart the Russia investigation and the barbs members have traded over the last two years have left some committee members skeptical.

Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), who joined the panel in 2015, said the trip could be a “posturing of good faith.”

Wenstrup, who also serves on the Ways and Means Committee, noted that panel had a bipartisan dinner recently and the atmosphere gave him hope that members are committed to working together, despite deep political differences. He said that he and other members want the same kind of collegiality to return to the intelligence committee.

“I will tell you, my first term on the Intelligence committee was very much business at hand,” he told POLITICO. “And then it changed after Mr. Trump got elected. We’ll see.”