In the past few days a lot of people (relatively speaking) have been reading this post (“Congressional Release of Classified Information and the Speech or Debate Clause”), which discusses the process by which the House and Senate intelligence committees may release classified information to the public. This spike in interest, I presume, relates to the vote yesterday of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) to release the “Nunes memo,” which details alleged abuses of the FISA process during the investigation of Russia’s involvement in the 2016 elections.
My prior posts on this subject have focused on the Senate (mostly in connection with the release of the “torture memo”, see here, here, here and here), but the House procedure is basically the same as that of the Senate, except that there is no requirement that HPSCI consult with or notify the chamber’s leadership. Thus, as provided by House Rule X(11)(g)(2)(B), HPSCI “may disclose publicly” the Nunes memo “after the expiration of a five-day period following the day on which notice of the vote to disclose is transmitted to the President,” unless in the interim the president objects in the manner specified by the rule.
As far as I can tell, the memo was not transmitted to the White House yesterday, so lets assume it will be transmitted today (note there is no requirement that HPSCI transmit the memo within a specified period of time). When will the five day period expire? If one counted every calendar day, it would expire at midnight on Sunday, February 4, and the memo could be released as early as Monday, February 5. Traditionally, however, the House considers Sunday to be a “dies non” so it will almost certainly not count for the computation. I am less clear on whether Saturday would be counted. Often House rules provide that Saturdays and legal holidays (as well as Sundays) are not counted for purposes of computing days, but there is no such express provision in the rule governing HPSCI’s release of information. So I am not sure whether the Parliamentarians will count Saturday or not. Depending on the answer, the memo would be releasable on Tuesday or Wednesday, unless an objection is received from the president.
What happens if the five days expire with no objection? The rule says that HPSCI “may” disclose the information at that point. It does not say that it must do so. But who decides whether the memo will actually be released? The rule says the information may be released by the “select committee.” It could therefore be argued that an individual member still cannot release the memo until HPSCI itself takes some further action. This might be interpreted to require that the committee take another vote, but since the rule elsewhere specifies other votes the committee must take, it seems likely that no formal vote is required. The Parliamentarians may rule that the chair can release the memo on behalf of the committee, but no one else may do so without the permission of the chair or another vote of the committee.
What if the White House asks for more time to evaluate the memo? Nothing in the rule expressly allows for the five day period to be extended. If the chair controls the release, he can agree to delay until the White House has an opportunity to respond. But once the five days expire, it would appear that the memo is releasable, even if it is not actually released. Any objection received after the expiration of the five days is (at least arguably) ineffective. Thus, if any faction of HPSCI (or the House) wanted the memo released, they could argue that the president’s objections were invalid under the rule.
[update: the above assumes that the transmission of the memo and “notice of the vote to disclose” occur simultaneously. This makes a certain amount of sense since it would be pointless to transmit the notice of the vote without informing the president of what is to be disclosed, given that the purpose of the five day period is for the president to decide whether to object to disclosure. But it is possible that HPSCI could transmit the memo to the president without a formal notice of the vote to disclose, thereby delaying the commencement of the five day period. So this represents another uncertainty as to when exactly the memo can/will be released publicly.]