(CNN) House Intelligence committee Chairman Devin Nunes said Tuesday he has invited FBI Director James Comey to testify again before House investigators. 
 
 Nunes did not say when he expected Comey to testify, only that he had extended the formal invitation. 
 
 Nunes originally planned to have Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers testify in private Tuesday, but he canceled the meeting Monday. 
 
 Comey's second round of testimony touched off a partisan fight among House investigators into Russia's meddling in the US election, with Democrats saying they were angry Nunes canceled a public hearing with former intelligence officials, including former acting Attorney General Sally Yates. 
 
 Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that Yates had been preparing to answer questions about phone calls between former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Russian officials. 
 
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 / Updated By Benjy Sarlin 
 
 Several Democrats are expressing outrage after letters surfaced that they said suggested the White House tried to prevent former acting Attorney General Sally Yates from testifying before a House Intelligence Committee in its probe of connections between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. 
 
 "It sounds like an effort to try and muzzle persons who have information and the ability to shed light on this investigation," Rep. Jackie Speier, D-California, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told MSNBC on Tuesday. 
 
 White House officials deny such claims and say the administration never sought to block Yates from testifying. 
 
 White House press secretary Sean Spicer called the assertion "100 percent false" during Tuesday's press briefing. 
 
 "I hope she testifies," Spicer said adding he is "looking forward to it". 
 
 House Intelligence chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Califonia, also denied the claims and added that the committee still planned to question her at some point. 
 
 “Neither Chairman Nunes nor any Intelligence Committee staff members had any communication with the White House whatsoever about Sally Yates testifying to the Committee,” Nunes said in a statement. “The only person the Committee has spoken to about her appearing before the Committee has been her lawyer. The Committee asked her to testify on our own accord and we still intend to have her speak to us.” 
 
 Yates was fired by President Trump in January after refusing to defend the administration’s executive order barring travel from seven Muslim-majority countries. 
 
 Yates, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper — all former Obama-administration appointees — were set to appear for public hearings on Tuesday on Russian interference in the 2016 election. 
 
 However, Nunes abruptly cancelled that session, over the objections of Democrats. Instead, FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Adm. Michael Rogers were asked to return to the Hill to testify in a closed session on that date. 
 
 Ultimately, that meeting, too, was cancelled due to a scheduling conflict and will be rescheduled. 
 
 Nunes has also scrapped the rest of the committee's meetings this week. 
 
 The House is currently investigating Russian influence on the election, but also possible ties between Russia and Trump associates, and the previous administration's use of surveillance, which President Trump asserted without evidence and against the testimony of top intelligence and justice officials had been used illegally to target Trump Tower. 
 
 Correspondences between Yates’ counsel David O’Neil, the committee’s chairman and ranking member, and the Justice Department obtained by NBC News and first published by the Washington Post show Yates requesting permission from the administration to speak at a hearing on Russian interference. 
 
 Read the letters 
 
 In a March 23 letter to Acting Assistant Attorney General Samuel Ramer, O’Neil wrote that Yates would not discuss classified information but that the guidance they received went further and was “overbroad, incorrect, and inconsistent with the department’s historical approach to the congressional testimony of current and former officials.” 
 
 Associate Deputy Attorney General Scott Schools responded that because Yates was seeking to testify on conversations she had with the White House Office of Counsel, the material would be covered by executive privilege and referred her to the White House. 
 
 He added she “need not obtain separate consent” from the Justice Department. 
 
 In a letter to White House counsel Donald McGahn on March 24, O’Neil said any guidance barring Yates from discussing conversations about an unnamed senior White House official would be “untenable” and that the relevant topics had already been discussed publicly by top officials. 
 
 Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that the cancelled hearing would have enabled members to question Yates about the lead-up to the president’s decision to fire former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn over conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that he failed to disclose to Vice President Mike Pence. He speculated that the White House may have been involved in the decision to block the meeting. 
 
 “We are aware that former AG Yates intended to speak on these matters, and sought permission to testify from the White House,” Schiff said. “Whether the White House's desire to avoid a public claim of executive privilege to keep her from providing the full truth on what happened contributed to the decision to cancel today's hearing, we do not know.” 
 
 Spicer denied that claim and called the Washington Post story “false.” 
 
 “The White House has taken no action to prevent Sally Yates from testifying and the Department of Justice specifically told her that it would not stop her and to suggest otherwise is completely irresponsible,” Spicer told NBC News. 
 
 White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders noted that O’Neil’s last letter to McGahn, dated March 24, said they would conclude the administration had not asserted executive privilege over the topics in question if they heard no response by Monday, March 27 at 10 AM. 
 
 “We took NO action, therefore not blocking her,” Sanders said. 
 
 The back-and-forth is the latest sign of tension between the White House, Nunes, and Democrats, some of whom have called for Nunes to step down from the investigation after he revealed he had met with a source at the White House before telling reporters that intelligence agencies may have incidentally monitored the president and his aides’ communications. 

 Washington (CNN) The White House on Tuesday rejected allegations that it sought to prevent former acting Attorney General Sally Yates from testifying before Congress in the House Intelligence Committee's investigation of ties between Russian agents and Trump campaign officials. 
 
 White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday the White House did not seek to block Yates' testimony and denied that the White House had pressured the House Intelligence Committee to cancel her scheduled testimony. 
 
 "I hope she testifies. I look forward to it," Spicer said during the White House briefing. "We have no problem with her testifying, plain and simple." 
 
 The statement came after The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration sought to block Yates' testimony before Congress, citing a Justice Department letter to Yates' attorney that said Yates' communications with the White House counsel "are likely covered by the presidential communications privilege." 
 
 The letter was sent on the same day that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes canceled a previously scheduled hearing where Yates was scheduled to testify about ties between Trump advisers and Russian officials. Yates briefed Trump's White House counsel on former national security adviser Michael Flynn's meeting with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. 
 
 The White House Counsel's office did not weigh in on the matter of Yates' testimony, a White House official said. 
 
 "There is no letter from the White House because Yates attorney's letter clearly states a non-response will be seen as the White House not asserting executive privilege," the official said. "So our non-response clearly allows her to freely move forward with testifying." 
 
 Yates' attorney David O'Neil said in a letter Friday to White House Counsel Don McGahn that Yates would go forward with her testimony and "conclude that the White House does not assert executive privilege" if he did not receive a response by Monday. 
 
 Spicer said the White House does not believe executive privilege should be an issue in Yates testifying, which is why McGahn did not respond. 
 
 Nunes spokesperson Jack Langer told CNN that neither Nunes nor any intelligence committee staffers spoke with the White House about Yates' scheduled testimony. 
 
 "The only person the committee has spoken to about her appearing before the committee has been her lawyer. The committee asked her to testify on our own accord and we still intend to have her speak to us," Langer said. 
 
 O'Neil, Yates' attorney, declined to comment or provide the letter he sent to the White House Counsel's office when contacted by CNN Tuesday. 
 
 Yates served as acting attorney general in the early days of the Trump administration until she was fired for refusing to implement President Donald Trump's order barring travelers form seven Muslim-majority countries. 
 
 Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he was "aware that former AG Yates intended to speak on these matters and sought permission to testify from the White House." 
 
 "Whether the White House's desire to avoid a public claim of executive privilege to keep her from providing the full truth on what happened contributed to the decision to cancel today's hearing, we do not know," Schiff said in statement Tuesday morning. "But we would urge that the open hearing be rescheduled without further delay and that Ms. Yates be permitted to testify freely and openly." 
 
 Rep. Mike Turner, a Republican on the committee, defended Nunes' decision to postpone the hearing on Tuesday, saying that Nunes needed to hear from FBI Director James Comey in a classified setting before he could hear from Yates publicly. 
 
 "That came well before any of this controversy," Turner told CNN's Erin Burnett on "OutFront." "She will voluntarily come. We asked her to. It was the Chairman's request she be there. The White House isn't stopping her."
– The White House says reports it tried to keep Sally Yates from testifying on ties between Russia and the Trump campaign are "100% false." The Washington Post reported Tuesday that, according to documents it received, the White House was planning on claiming presidential communication privilege to prevent Yates from testifying on certain matters. The former acting attorney general was fired by Trump in January but had been deeply involved in the investigation of Michael Flynn before that. She was scheduled to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, but chairman Devin Nunes canceled that hearing, angering Democrats on the committee, CNN reports. According to NBC News, Nunes denies discussing Yates' testimony with the White House. Sean Spicer has also denied the White House tried to stop Yates from testifying. He says he wants Yates to testify, adding, "I look forward to it." Nunes says he still plans on questioning Yates at some point. A source tells the Post that Yates had told officials her testimony would likely contradict statements made by White House officials. Nunes replaced the planned testimony of Yates and two others with a private questioning of James Comey, which he also then canceled. In fact, Nunes canceled all the committee's meetings for this week. But CNN reports Nunes has now issued a formal invitation to the FBI director to testify before Congress. It's unclear when that testimony will occur.