The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, a member of President-elect Trump’s transition team, sided with Trump on Sunday in criticizing the leak of an intelligence report to the press last week, saying that it appeared to be a political swipe at Trump by the Obama administration.
The release of information about hacks into the Clinton campaign’s emails, and intelligence agencies’ tying it to Russia “looks like a political roll-out of a narrative just a couple weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration, and it bothers me, and I don’t think it’s good,” said Devin Nunes, a California Republican, in an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace.
Trump has criticized the leak of the intelligence agencies’ findings to the media before he was briefed and called for Congress to investigate the leaks. He renewed his objections Sunday afternoon via twitter, saying that the leaks were “so serious.”
Nunes said Sunday that the leaks were an effort by the Obama White House to undercut Trump. White House press secretary Josh Earnest on Friday said that he was “confident” that the information was not leaked by the Obama White House.
In his appearance Sunday, Nunes also cautioned Trump against adopting an overly friendly stance toward Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Past presidents have tried to “be buddies” with Putin, he said, only to have it backfire. He has counseled Trump that Putin is a “bad actor.”
“Donald Trump is surrounding himself with very good people who understand the threat that Russia poses,” he added.
