House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes dismissed the idea that Republicans focused too much during Monday’s Russia hearing on the leak that led Michael Flynn to step down as President Trump’s national security adviser last month.
Nunes, R-Calif., countered reporters after the hearing by saying that the leak of the transcript of Flynn speaking to the Russian ambassador before Trump’s inauguration is the “one crime that’s been committed.”
“I say that there’s been one crime that’s been committed, and that is the leaking of someone’s name,” Nunes told a gaggle of reporters on Capitol Hill after the committee’s hearing on Russia’s attempted interference in the U.S. election ended.
“Everything else, we’re conducting oversight on,” he said. “This committee, and the Republicans led by me, said a year ago that this was the largest intelligence failure since 9-11. So anything to the contrary of that, is ridiculous.”
“I warned about it, I begged them to do something about it – the last administration,” Nunes added. “I begged the intelligence agencies to do something about it. They did nothing.”
Nunes was also asked by reporters if the hacking of emails from the Democratic National Committee or from the account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta were also crimes. “I think they can attribute that to a foreign power,” Nunes replied.
In the hearing that lasted more than four hours, partisan sides clearly emerged for the lines of questioning, with Democrats heavily focusing on laying out a map of dots that might possibly be connected to show Russian collusion with the Trump campaign last year. Republicans, meanwhile, asked questions about how the transcript of a Flynn phone call was leaked to the media.
Nunes also told the reporters he felt FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers were not as forthcoming as he hoped they might be. When asked if he learned anything from today’s hearing, Nunes said, “Not too much, no.
