The New York Times reports that two White House officials were involved in uncovering and distributing intelligence reports that wound up in the hands of House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes last week. “Several current American officials identified the White House officials as Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a lawyer who works on national security issues at the White House Counsel’s Office and formerly worked on the staff of the House Intelligence Committee,” writes the Times.

A person with knowledge of the matter tells me Cohen-Watnick was not directed by anyone at the White House to find the reports, which Nunes has claimed reveal improper unmasking of Trump campaign and transition team associates through likely legal surveillance. Instead, the source says, the NSC staffer discovered them while researching the unmasking procedure. And in a Thursday letter to Nunes and his Democratic counterpart Adam Schiff, White House counsel Donald McGahn indicated that some documents were discovered “in the ordinary course of business” by the NSC. McGahn states in the letter that the White House would facilitate Schiff reviewing these documents.