House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said Wednesday that new intelligence reports show some conversations involving members of President Trump’s transition team were collected by intelligence officials, but said those conversations appeared to be collected “legally” in the course of “normal, foreign surveillance.”
“I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show that the President-elect and his team were, I guess at least monitored and disseminated out in intelligence, in what appears to be raw — or, I shouldn’t say raw — intelligence recording channels,” Nunes said.
“From what I know right now, it looks like incidental collection,” Nunes added. “We don’t know exactly how that was picked up, but we’re trying to get to the bottom of it.”
Nunes said the information was legally brought to him by people who thought the Intelligence Committee ought to have the information, and Nunes said most of the incidental collection he viewed appeared to happen in November, December and January, the transition months for the Trump presidency.
Nunes’ disclosure came just two days after the committee held its first open hearing on the investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 election. In that hearing, FBI Director Jim Comey disclosed that the bureau was investigating Russian influence in the election, and that included potential “cooperation” by the Trump campaign with Russia.
In Wednesday’s press conference, Nunes said he was surprised and “alarmed” by the new discovery. But he also said he doesn’t have enough information to say whether any intelligence was collected on Trump or his team beyond routine foreign surveillance. He said he would try to gather more evidence and material that might definitively answer those questions.
When pressed if the communications were collected from Trump Tower, Nunes could only answer, “We don’t know. We don’t know that.”
“Well, I guess it all depends on one’s definition of spying,” Nunes said when asked if he thought the intelligence community was “spying” on Trump during the transition period, as Trump has claimed. “I mean clearly it bothers me enough, I’m not comfortable with it, and I want to make sure the White House understands it.”
Nunes said he has other concerns about the procedures that appeared to have allowed the persons’ names to first be “unmasked” and then later disseminated.
Nunes said from the information he had seen, the information collected in the surveillance had little or nothing to do at all with Russia, or members of the Russian government.
Nunes’ comments could create new lines of questioning when other intelligence and justice officials appear before the next House Oversight Committee open hearing on Russia, which is scheduled for March 28.
