House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., pushed back against his Senate counterparts’ categorical conclusion that Trump Tower was never under surveillance during the campaign or presidential transition.
Nunes stood by his Wednesday assertion that there was no “physical” wiretap on then-candidate and President-elect Trump. But beyond that, he said, is unknowable.
“I don’t know how anybody would have that information, with that different information than me, because we know that Flynn was picked up” by surveillance not directed at him, Nunes said about Gen. Michael Flynn, who stepped down as Trump’s national security adviser after undisclosed conversations he had with Russia’s U.S. ambassador came to public attention.
“We don’t know the extent of that, how widespread…and that’s why we’ve asked a whole series of questions that we need a lot of data for from the agencies” to answer, he said.
There was no physical wiretap on Trump but “you can’t rule out surveillance because we know for a fact that they picked up incidental collection on General Flynn—now we don’t know if that was it,” Nunes told reporters on Thursday.
Earlier Thursday Sens. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Mark Warner, D-Va., issued a joint statement flatly refuting Trump’s claims that the Obama Administration unlawfully surveyed him.
“Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016,” the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman and ranking Democrat stated.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, said he agrees with Burr and Warner.
“I thought we both made it very clear yesterday that there is no substance to the president’s allegations, and I fully concur with what the chair and ranking in the Senate put out,” Schiff told the Washington Examiner. “I think it’s fully accurate.”
