Senator accuses GOP of using secretive intel hearings to hide Trump’s Russia contacts

Appearing on All In with Chris Hayes, senior Senate leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) accused Republicans of using the secretive House and Senate Intelligence committees to probe Russian involvement within the Trump administration in an effort to cover-up their findings.

Speaking with MSNBC host Hayes, Durbin blasted GOP leaders, including former House Oversight chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), for their sudden interest in having Trump investigated -- but on their terms.

"Let's get to the beginning here," Durbin explained. "Why did they choose the intelligence committees for this investigation? There's a lot of reasons but one of them is they meet behind closed doors, the public can't see what is happening, you don't know what witnesses are being called, there's no effort or opportunity to test credibility. And if they ever produce a report in some distant time, it's going to be classified."

"Isn't it interesting that Darrell Issa, who couldn't hold himself back from having weeks and months and years of public investigations of the Obama administration now doesn't believe in congressional investigations but wants to have a special prosecutor." Durbin continued. "Well, certainly we don't want to see Attorney General Sessions who should recuse himself being the prosecutor. A special prosecutor may be in order. but why have the Republicans, who couldn't quit on emails and Benghazi decided now that no public hearing on this Russian involvement in our election is really warranted. What a hoot."

Watch the video below via MSNBC: