“What’s happening now I’ve never seen before,” said retired Gen. Michael Hayden, director of the National Security Agency under presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, and director of the CIA under presidents Bush and Obama. “What’s happening now is that many members of the president’s party on the committee are aligned with the president to make war on the president’s own security establishments . . . . It’s taken the partisanship to a place it’s never been.”

From investigations into the 9/11 attacks to the terrorist assault on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, the House Intelligence Committee has grappled with politically divisive probes in the past. But current and former members of both parties say that Trump has riven the panel as no other matter has in decades.

“We lost our bipartisanship on November 9,” Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) said, referring to the day after Election Day 2016. “I just think at its heart, that’s what’s caused a lot of this — whether you love Trump or you hate Trump, it is a more partisan time, and it’s infected our committee.”