House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., broke with President Trump and said he welcomes Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ announcement that the Justice Department’s inspector general would investigate alleged abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
“I was happy to see Attorney General Jeff Sessions appoint Mr. [Michael] Horowitz, because we welcome more people investigating these serious issues that we’re working on,” Nunes said in a phone interview Saturday on Fox News.
Nunes’ opinion clashes with that of Trump, who last week tweeted that Sessions was wrong to have the inspector general in charge of the probe looking into the Obama administration possibly abusing its surveillance authority to spy on a former member of his campaign, Carter Page.
“Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse,” Trump tweeted. “Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on [former FBI Director James] Comey etc. Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!”
Fox News host Neil Cavuto mentioned Trump’s protests, asking Nunes if he has confidence in Horowitz.
“I welcome anybody to help come investigate because so far it’s only the House Intelligence Committee Republicans who are actually doing anything to get to the bottom of who was colluding with Russia,” he replied. Nunes also said they have “clear evidence” that Democrats colluded with the Russians and blamed the media for not covering the FISA abuse controversy enough.
.@DevinNunes: “We have a media that pretty much refuses to cover this issue at all. We have serious abuses that occurred in the FISA court against the Trump campaign.” #Cavuto pic.twitter.com/zvhMSu2LSd— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 3, 2018
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin.
[Devin Nunes: Stephen Colbert memo skit an example of how ‘conservatives are under attack’]
In a letter sent to Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday, Nunes wrote that the apparent use of the controversial “Trump dossier” to make the case for spying on Page suggests a “clear violation” of FBI protocols because it contained unverified information and such a breach of protocol may have violated five criminal statutes, including conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and contempt of court. He asked Sessions to answer questions about DOJ protocol and any actions performed to “hold accountable those officials who violated these protocols,” and asked for an answer next week.
The House Intelligence Committee is also looking into Russian interference, but that is being led by Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, after Nunes removed himself from the probe last year following a controversial meeting with White House officials to examine classified documents, after which he briefed Trump.
But the panel, under Nunes’ direction, has also sought to uncover wrongdoing by top DOJ and FBI officials. Last month, the Republicans, led by Nunes, succeeded in seeing their memo on alleged FISA abuses released to the public with Trump’s blessing.
The Democrats on the House Intelligence committee put together their own memo, meant as a rebuttal, and last weekend, that report was released with redactions.
