An interesting battle is shaping up between Adam Schiff, Dem chair of the House intelligence committee, and President Trump's Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Rick Grenell. Schiff has attempted to bully Grenell and bring him to heel--which is to say, bring a halt to Grenell's ongoing housecleaning of the Intel Community. Grenell has rejected Schiff's demand that personnel moves be cleared through Schiff. In typical Schiff fashion, Schiff's missives have--for practical purposes--been released to the press before Grenell has had any chance to respond. Grenell is having none of it, and has responded in a manner that sets him apart from the usual groveling of agency heads before a Congressional committee chairman.
The Hill has a summary of the spat: Intelligence chief Grenell hits back against Schiff criticism of agency reorganization. Schiff set things off by essentially claiming that Grenell should clear personnal changes through Schiff.
Schiff noted that Grenell was pursuing leadership changes at intelligence agencies without seeking authorization from Congress and raised questions about the removal or departure of every Senate-confirmed official at the ODNI.
Schiff also accused Grenell of allowing his staff to “interfere with the production and briefing of intelligence information” on election security that was given to Congress during a March 10 all-members briefing on election security.
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Another issue raised by Schiff was the decision by President Trump to fire Michael Atkinson, the now-former acting inspector general of the IC. Atkinson alerted Congress to the anonymous whistleblower complaint around Trump’s July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that ultimately kicked off the impeachment investigation into Trump.
Grenell responded by telling Schiff in just about so many words to mind his own business and spend some time reading the Constitution:
