leader of this investigation. i will tell you that congressman conaway is widely respected. most of us even on the other side of the aisle believe that he is fair-minded. so we re all hoping that the investigation, which never really came to a close we ve agreed on witness lists. we ve agreed on how to proceed. that perhaps this investigation will now be able to proceed more the way the senate was proceeding, with a sense of, you know, both parties working together. so i hope that when we wake up tomorrow, that is reality. congressman, thank you. thank you for that point of information. you re absolutely right. jim himes, democrat of the state of connecticut. we ve got a number of other people joining us over the course of this hour. i do want to say i think we re going to be hearing from malcolm nance in just a moment, which is good in terms of the counterterrorism part of this. and also the possible response from russia here. i do think it s worth restating what we know. we a
the lead story given the pace of news earlier today. that is your committee on the republican side, the majority side, under new leadership. devin nunes is gone as chairman. tell our viewers your view of the new guy, the next ranking republican who moves up, and how you think this will materially affect the investigation before you and your colleagues in the senate. yeah, brian, i just need to correct you on that point. chairman nunes remains chairman. he has simply been he has taken himself out of leadership of the investigation. all right. in favor of congressman mike conaway. look, i think this was an ua god thing to happen. chairman nunes, as much as i consider him a good friend, his behavior the last two weeks and in a couple of episodes prior really called into question whether he could ever be perceived as impartial as the
probe. i think this will reduce the tension on the house probe and it s good for america. let s probe it and get to the bottom of what he did and when he did it. bill: katie, what s you re view on this and in the context of what the president said that he believes susan rice committed a crime? we have to say the committee is in good hands with congressman conaway and trey gowdy to take a role. in terms of backing nunes i m sure the white house will come out with a state statement saying they have full confidence in him and paul ryan saying he still trusts him. it looks like democrats and lawmakers on the hill in the house and saying we for his resignation and they called for his resignation to step aside and refuse to do it. to me it looks like some democrats on the hill got in touch with the group and said why don t you file the ethics
reporter: this as some democrats, despite nunes recusal have renewed their calls for the investigation to be handled by an independent commission. consistently, house speaker paul ryan has said he supported the role that nunes played in the investigation. we re told they spoke about the situation and ryan agreed with his decision to step away and allow congressman conaway to take over. nunes said he did not inform the members of the house intelligence committee during a meeting this morning. in fact, erin, many of them learned of his decision through press reports. erin? thank you. reporter: thank you. democratic congresswoman jackie spear, thank you for being with me. we ve learned the full intelligence committee is going to be able to view, is going to go view the intelligence documents that devin nunes saw at the white house. have you seen them yet? i have not but i will be. are you comfortable with the
investigation. it will, i think, allow us to have a fresh start moving forward. i look forward to moving with mr. conaway. this investigation is of such critical importance that we need to get fully back on track. it is, i think, worth noting the investigation never went into hiatus. we ve been continuing to develop our witness list and work out logistics in how we bring people before the committee and what the process will be. we continue to go through the documents. as i understand it now the materials the chairman viewed at the white house that i subsequently viewed are now being made available to the full committee. i think that s a positive step as well. so i do want to say i look forward to continuing to work with the chairman on the whole range of other issues our committee has to deal with. we have i think worked together very well on a range of other