Surveillance revelation sparks apology from panel chairman
WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House intelligence committee privately apologized to his Democratic colleagues on Thursday yet publicly defended his decision to openly discuss and brief President Donald Trump on typically secret intercepts that he says swept up communications of the president’s transition team in the final days of the Obama administration.
GOP Rep. Devin Nunes’ decision to disclose the information before talking to committee members outraged Democrats and raised questions about the independence of the panel’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible contacts between Trump associates and Russia.
“It was a judgment call on my part,” Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said Thursday morning. “Sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you make the wrong decision.”
A congressional aide familiar with Nunes’ private meeting said the chairman apologized to Democrats and pledged to work with them and share information related to the investigation.
“A credible investigation cannot be conducted this way,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House panel.
The White House quickly embraced Nunes’ revelation, with the president saying they “somewhat” validated his wiretapping allegations.
Nunes’ critics also questioned whether the California congressman was coordinating with the White House in order to give the president cover for his explosive claim that Barack Obama wiretapped Trump’s New York skyscraper before Election Day. The congressman’s revelation dealt with possible surveillance after Trump won the election.
Nunes, who served on Trump’s transition team, ducked questions about whether he was parroting information given to him by the White House, saying only that he was “not going to ever reveal sources.” He maintained that Trump’s explosive wiretapping allegations against Obama were false.
Still, White House spokesman Sean Spicer claimed, inaccurately, that Nunes was “vindicating” the president’s assertion that Obama wiretapped his New York skyscraper during the election. Nunes specifically stated that the new information did not support that..
Nunes’ disclosure came two days after FBI Director James Comey publicly confirmed the bureau’s own investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections with Russia. Comey’s comments came during the intelligence committee’s first public hearing on Russia’s election interference, an investigation being overseen by Nunes.
Nunes said he received the new intelligence information after that hearing. He said it revealed that Trump’s transition associates — and perhaps Trump himself — had their communications picked up through legal surveillance.
The surveillance was conducted legally, Nunes said, and did not appear to be related to the FBI’s Russia investigation. He said his concern was that the identities of the Trump officials were improperly revealed and the contents of their communications were “widely disseminated” in intelligence reports.