Devin Nunes offers “generic” apology.
Committee chairman termed it a ‘ judgment call’ to brief Trump
WASHINGTON — House Intelligence Committee Democrats say Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, apologized to them Thursday during a closed-door meeting for his handling of revelations about surveillance that potentially could have been collected about President Donald Trump and his associates during the transition period.
Nunes’s apology was “generic,” Intelligence Committee member Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, said on CNN, adding that it was “not clear” which part of his actions for which he was sorry.
Nunes came under fire from Democrats Wednesday after going first to the press, then to the White House, and then to the press again before consulting with colleagues about what he said was fresh intelligence about the president and his campaign aides.
On Thursday, Nunes said it was a “judgment call” to personally brief Trump before speaking with his Intelligence Committee colleagues, who are actively investigating allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections and suspected links between Trump aides and the Kremlin.
The California Republican also promised colleagues they would see the documents he was referring to on Friday, which is when Nunes is expecting the NSA, CIA and FBI to respond to a request for a full list of names of people whose identities were disclosed through “incidental collection,” or legal collection by U.S. intelligence agencies of communications by foreign entities that could involve American citizens. Nunes said Wednes- day the information he has seen may show that Trump or his aides were picked up in such incidental collection during the transition.
Some Democrats have accused Nunes of speaking publicly in an attempt to deflect attention away from Monday’s congressional hearing, at which FBI Director James Comey not only confirmed the FBI is looking into allegations that the Trump team coordinated with Russian officials during the election, but said flatly that Trump’s accusation that he was being wiretapped by the Obama administration was false.
The intelligence community regularly monitors the communications of foreign individuals acting as agents of a foreign government, as they do some people suspected of terrorism, pending court approval. The communications of Americans who are in touch with those foreign agents can thus be “incidentally collected” — as happened when former national security adviser Mi- chael Flynn was picked up talking to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, who was under surveillance.
The problem potentially arises when the identities of those Americans are “unmasked” — that is, revealed to others in the government. There are legal procedures allowing for such unmasking when it is deemed to be necessary for understanding the context of the intelligence in communications.
Nunes said Wednesday he was concerned about the unmasking in the information he viewed. But after speaking with Nunes, Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff, DBurbank, said that only one name in the report Nunes viewed was “unmasked” — and that name had nothing to do with the Trump team.
“He betrayed the independence that our committee must show to get to the bottom of what happened with Russia’s interference in our elections,” said Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Pleasanton.