Nine lawmakers publicly backed Sen. Dianne Feinstein in her push for public hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Russia's election meddling. | Zach Gibson/Getty Images Democrats ask Grassley for public hearings on Russia's meddling

Sen. Dianne Feinstein's push for public hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Russia's election meddling got a show of support Thursday from every other Democrat on the panel.

The nine lawmakers publicly backed Feinstein, the top Democrat on the committee, in a public nudge to the committee's chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). They want more information from President Donald Trump aides including his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has "declined to schedule even a staff-level interview" with Judiciary, the Democrats wrote in a letter to Grassley.


Grassley recently said he would start releasing transcripts of the committee's interviews with people, such as Donald Trump Jr., who attended a controversial June 2016 meeting between a Kremlin-connected attorney and top advisers to Trump's campaign.

But while Kushner was at that meeting, he has not produced all of the documents the committee requested or participated in an interview, the Democrats said. They said he had not handed over "documents related to the section of his security clearance forms that would reveal foreign travel and contacts."

The Democrats asked Grassley to pursue public hearings in order to not only secure answers from Kushner but to allow them to pursue unexplored areas of the Russia probe.

"Committee members have long been led to believe that they would have the chance to question witnesses directly — to follow up on the many questions raised by the staff interviews and to ensure that witnesses testify publicly and under oath," the group wrote to Grassley.

"Any effort to end the Committee’s inquiry before Committee members have been able to ask a single question — and before a single witness has been questioned in public or under oath — would be a disservice to the Judiciary Committee’s long history of serving as a forum to ferret out the truth and inform the American people," they said.

Grassley's office did not immediately return a request for comment on the Democratic letter, which was signed by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.).

