NUNES MET SOURCE OF DOCS AT WHITE HOUSE
Intel panel chair wanted secure location, aide says
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee met secretly at the White House complex with the source of documents detailing the intelligence community’s incidental collection of communications involving associates of President Trump, a top aide confirmed Monday.
The source of the intelligence reports cited by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has been a matter of increasing speculation, as the chairman declined to inform Democratic members of the existence of intelligence reports before briefing reporters and the president the day after his mysterious White House meeting.
Democrats have asserted that Nunes sought to provide political cover to the president, who falsely claimed that the Obama administration wiretapped his New York offices in advance of the 2016 election.
“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,” Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said. “The chairman is extremely concerned by the possible improper unmasking of names of U.S. citizens, and he began looking into this issue even before President Trump tweeted his assertion that Trump Tower had been wiretapped.”
Langer declined Monday to identify the source of the documents. “The chairman has repeatedly said he will not reveal any information at all about the source,” Langer said.
Last week, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump did not give Nunes the in- formation. And Monday, Spicer sought to distance the White House from any collaboration with Nunes, saying he was unaware of the specific contents of the information Nunes saw or who had provided the information to the chairman.
“I can’t say for 100% on what he briefed (the president) on,” Spicer said Monday.
Monday’s disclosure, though, only raised more questions about Nunes’ actions last week and his committee’s ability to impartially investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the panel’s ranking Democrat, and other Democrats late Monday called for Nunes to recuse himself from any further oversight of the House inquiry.
“After much consideration, and in light of the chairman’s admission that he met with his source of information at the White House, I believe that the chairman should recuse himself from any further involvement in the Russia investigation,” Schiff said.
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., a member of Nunes’ committee, called Monday for him to recuse himself from the panel’s inquiry.
Last week, FBI Director James Comey revealed that federal investigators were in the midst of a counter-intelligence investigation into Russian interference and possible ties between Trump associates and the Russian government.
Nunes then said that an undisclosed number of Trump transition members — and possibly Trump himself — had been swept up in surveillance reports after the election in what Nunes described as incidental collection that appeared to be “legal,” though perhaps inappropriate.
Nunes suggested last week that the information came from a whistle-blower or other intelligence source with access to the information. He briefed Trump about the contents of the reports at the White House before telling committee members.