Russia probe head admits secret visit to White House
UNITED STATES: The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., conceded yesterday that the source for a dramatic statement he made last week about possible intelligence surveillance of members of President Donald Trump’s transition team was someone he had met with at the White House.
The disclosure, showing coordination between the White House and Nunes, added to questions about whether the congressman could lead the intelligence panel in an impartial investigation of Russian involvement in the presidential election and possible links to Trump’s advisers.
According to his spokesman, Nunes went to the White House to meet his source because there was a facility there for reviewing classified information.
‘‘Chairman Nunes met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source,’’ the spokesman, Jack Langer, said.
A similar facility exists on Capitol Hill, however, which Nunes would routinely have access to.
Langer said the source of Nunes’ information was not a White House staff member. Any person entering the White House complex to meet with Nunes, however, would need to have been cleared by White House officials, who also control access to the secure facilities there.
Separately, the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is conducting its own inquiry into possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia, said Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had agreed to answer the panel’s questions about his contacts with Russia.
‘‘We expect him to be able to provide answers to key questions that have arisen in our inquiry,’’ Chairman Richard M. Burr, R-N.C., and Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the committee, said in a statement.
‘‘The timing of Mr Kushner’s testimony is still being determined, but will only come after the committee determines that it has received any documents or information necessary to ensure that the meeting is productive for all sides,’’ the lawmakers said.
During the transition, Kushner was one of several Trump associates who met with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.
The New York Times reported that Kushner, at Kislyak’s request, also met with Sergey N. Gorkov, the chief of Vnesheconombank, a Moscow-based state-owned bank that was placed on a US sanctions list after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Kushner had ‘‘volunteered to go in and sit down with’’ the committee members ‘‘based on the questions that surround this.’’
Meeting with individuals from foreign governments was ‘‘part of his job,’’ Spicer emphasised.
- LA Times