Questions Grow Over Nunes' Mystery White House "Source" Visit
by Tyler Durden
Mar 27, 2017 3:47 PM
The mystery surrounding President Donald Trump's claim that he was wiretapped by Barack Obama during the 2016 election campaign deepened on Monday, when it was revealed that House Intel Committee Chair Devin Nunes was on the White House grounds where he reviewed classified information the day before he announced he had seen intelligence that showed members of President Trump's transition team had been caught up in surveillance operations.
U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, who has been embroiled in a firestorm of controversy over the past week, visited the White House the night before announcing on Wednesday that he had information that indicated some Trump associates may have been subjected to some level of intelligence activity before Trump took office on Jan. 20. According to a Daily Beast report, Nunes "went off the grid" that night to meet a source and view dozens of intelligence reports, including accounts of meetings involving President Donald Trump's advisers.
Nunes admitted he was on White House grounds, but not in the White House itself, for meetings "to confirm what I already knew," and he noted no one in the White House knew he was there. Nunes then declined to comment further because he didn't want to "compromise sources and methods."
Then it gets weirder.
As Bloomberg's Eli Lake adds, "CNN is reporting that Nunes had in fact slipped off to the White House grounds last Tuesday to view the documents. And then on Wednesday, after briefing reporters on what he had found in those intelligence reports, he went back to the White House to inform the president."
One question that has emerged since the details of Nunes' visit were revealed, is why would the Republican Intel Committee Chair need to brief the president on documents he viewed at a facility on White House grounds? The White House directed questions about the episode to Nunes. "We have been made aware through public reports that Chairman Nunes confirmed he was on the White House grounds on Tuesday and any questions concerning his meeting should be directed to the Chairman," the White House said.
In an interview Monday, Nunes told Lake that he ended up meeting his source on the White House grounds because it was the most convenient secure location with a computer connected to the system that included the reports, which are only distributed within the executive branch. "We don't have networked access to these kinds of reports in Congress," Nunes said. He added that his source was not a White House staffer and was an intelligence official.
Nunes, it should be said, has a history of cultivating independent sources inside the intelligence community. He made contact, for example, with the U.S. intelligence contractors who ended up saving most of the Americans stuck in the Benghazi outpost when it was attacked on Sept. 11, 2012. More recently, Nunes has reached out to his network of whistleblowers to learn about pressure inside the military's Central Command on analysts to write positive reports on the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State.
In this case, Nunes had been hearing for more than a month about intelligence reports that included details on the Trump transition team, and had been trying to view them himself. He told me that when he finally saw the documents last Tuesday evening, he made sure to copy down their identifying numbers so he could request access to them formally for the rest of the committee.
Confirming Lake's account, Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said in a statement that 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."
As Reuters adds, it was the latest twist in a saga that began on March 4 when Trump said on Twitter that he "just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory." FBI Director James Comey told Congress last Monday he had seen no evidence to support the claim. Trump's mention of wiretapping drew attention away from U.S. intelligence agencies having said that Russia tried to help Trump in the election against Democrat Hillary Clinton by hacking leading Democrats and spreading disinformation. Moscow denies any such activities. Trump has also dismissed them.
Nunes told reporters on Wednesday that he had briefed Trump "on the concerns I had about incidental collection and how it relates to President-elect Trump and his transition team and the concerns that I have." After an uproar over the allegations and the fact that he briefed Trump first before members of his own committee, Nunes apologized on Thursday for the way he handled the information. A congressional source said congressional investigators have questioned agencies directly to try to find out what intelligence reports and intercepts Nunes is referring to, but that as of Monday the agencies were still saying they did not know what Nunes was talking about.
Earlier on Monday, the Washington Post reported that Nunes was on his way to an event late Tuesday when he left his staff and went to review classified intelligence files brought to his attention by his source, whom he has not identified.
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by Tyler Durden
Mar 27, 2017 3:47 PM
The mystery surrounding President Donald Trump's claim that he was wiretapped by Barack Obama during the 2016 election campaign deepened on Monday, when it was revealed that House Intel Committee Chair Devin Nunes was on the White House grounds where he reviewed classified information the day before he announced he had seen intelligence that showed members of President Trump's transition team had been caught up in surveillance operations.
U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, who has been embroiled in a firestorm of controversy over the past week, visited the White House the night before announcing on Wednesday that he had information that indicated some Trump associates may have been subjected to some level of intelligence activity before Trump took office on Jan. 20. According to a Daily Beast report, Nunes "went off the grid" that night to meet a source and view dozens of intelligence reports, including accounts of meetings involving President Donald Trump's advisers.
Nunes admitted he was on White House grounds, but not in the White House itself, for meetings "to confirm what I already knew," and he noted no one in the White House knew he was there. Nunes then declined to comment further because he didn't want to "compromise sources and methods."
Then it gets weirder.
As Bloomberg's Eli Lake adds, "CNN is reporting that Nunes had in fact slipped off to the White House grounds last Tuesday to view the documents. And then on Wednesday, after briefing reporters on what he had found in those intelligence reports, he went back to the White House to inform the president."
One question that has emerged since the details of Nunes' visit were revealed, is why would the Republican Intel Committee Chair need to brief the president on documents he viewed at a facility on White House grounds? The White House directed questions about the episode to Nunes. "We have been made aware through public reports that Chairman Nunes confirmed he was on the White House grounds on Tuesday and any questions concerning his meeting should be directed to the Chairman," the White House said.
In an interview Monday, Nunes told Lake that he ended up meeting his source on the White House grounds because it was the most convenient secure location with a computer connected to the system that included the reports, which are only distributed within the executive branch. "We don't have networked access to these kinds of reports in Congress," Nunes said. He added that his source was not a White House staffer and was an intelligence official.
Nunes, it should be said, has a history of cultivating independent sources inside the intelligence community. He made contact, for example, with the U.S. intelligence contractors who ended up saving most of the Americans stuck in the Benghazi outpost when it was attacked on Sept. 11, 2012. More recently, Nunes has reached out to his network of whistleblowers to learn about pressure inside the military's Central Command on analysts to write positive reports on the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State.
In this case, Nunes had been hearing for more than a month about intelligence reports that included details on the Trump transition team, and had been trying to view them himself. He told me that when he finally saw the documents last Tuesday evening, he made sure to copy down their identifying numbers so he could request access to them formally for the rest of the committee.
Confirming Lake's account, Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said in a statement that 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."
As Reuters adds, it was the latest twist in a saga that began on March 4 when Trump said on Twitter that he "just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory." FBI Director James Comey told Congress last Monday he had seen no evidence to support the claim. Trump's mention of wiretapping drew attention away from U.S. intelligence agencies having said that Russia tried to help Trump in the election against Democrat Hillary Clinton by hacking leading Democrats and spreading disinformation. Moscow denies any such activities. Trump has also dismissed them.
Nunes told reporters on Wednesday that he had briefed Trump "on the concerns I had about incidental collection and how it relates to President-elect Trump and his transition team and the concerns that I have." After an uproar over the allegations and the fact that he briefed Trump first before members of his own committee, Nunes apologized on Thursday for the way he handled the information. A congressional source said congressional investigators have questioned agencies directly to try to find out what intelligence reports and intercepts Nunes is referring to, but that as of Monday the agencies were still saying they did not know what Nunes was talking about.
Earlier on Monday, the Washington Post reported that Nunes was on his way to an event late Tuesday when he left his staff and went to review classified intelligence files brought to his attention by his source, whom he has not identified.
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