The White House defended its involvement in Thursday’s classified briefings to lawmakers, and said chief of staff John Kelly and Emmet Flood, one of President Trump’s personal lawyers, did not participate and were only there at the beginning to make “brief remarks” before the briefings started.
“Neither Chief Kelly nor Mr. Flood actually attended the meetings but did make brief remarks before the meetings started to relay the president’s desire for as much openness as possible under the law,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
Sanders had originally said that no one from the White House would attend either meeting, even though Kelly was tasked earlier in the week with setting things up.
Kelly and Flood also “conveyed the President’s understanding of the need to protect human intelligence services and the importance of communication between the branches of government,” Sanders said.
The two back-to-back meetings Thursday came after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes threatened to hold Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in contempt for not responding to a subpoena.
The subpoena included all documents relating to a confidential FBI source that made contact with the Trump campaign in 2016.
Leaving the meeting on Capitol Hill Thursday afternoon, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., called the meeting “unusual.”
“Never seen a Gang of Eight meeting that included any presence from the White House. Those individuals left before the substance of it. Unusual times,” the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee said to reporters.
Flood handles the Russia investigation for the president, which made Democrats wary of why he would be in attendance.
The first meeting at the Justice Department included Rosenstein, FBI Director Christoper Wray, and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.
Nunes, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee were also in attendance.
The afternoon meeting on Capitol Hill also included Rosenstein, Wray, and Coats, and the “Gang of Eight,” minus Ryan.
The “Gang of Eight” is the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, and both parties’ leaders on the House and Senate Intelligence panels.
Earlier Thursday, Warner condemned the separate briefings.
“The White House’s plan to provide a separate briefing for their political allies demonstrates that their interest is not in informing Congress, but in undermining an ongoing criminal investigation,” Warner said in a statement. “If they insist upon carrying out this farce, the White House and its Republican allies in the House will do permanent, longstanding damage to the practice of bipartisan congressional oversight of intelligence.”
