As it turns out, House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes’ announcement Wednesday that he had learned that the U.S. intelligence community had “incidentally” collected information on members of Trump’s transition team, then had disseminated that information internally, was done without consulting with the committee he chairs.
That committee, the House Intelligence Committee, has been tasked with investigating Russia’s influence over the 2016 election, as well as President Trump’s claim that former President Obama had Trump Tower “wiretapped.”
Trump later went on to say “wiretapped” could mean a lot of things.
Ok.
Nunes actually briefed Trump on whatever information it was he collected, before going over the information with the committee and that’s just a little weird, to be honest.
Speaking on NBC’s “Today” show, Senator John McCain expressed his dismay over how Nunes handled the entire episode.
“No I have not seen anything like that,” McCain said on NBC’s “Today” show.
“And I am happy to say that, in the Senate Intelligence Committee, there’s a very good working relationship between Sen. [Richard] Burr [R-N.C.] and Sen. [Mark] Warner [D-Va.] and no, I have not seen anything like it and it’s very disturbing.”
And a lot can be made of the partisanship involved in these committees. Anyone who has watched a few of them has seen it over and over again.
That being said, how would Republicans react if, say, during Hillary Clinton’s hearing on her email servers it was discovered that a Democrat on the committee had run back to her with information they received and prepped her, beforehand?
Or if they’d stood in front of the press and revealed information that they’d received without first letting their committee – both sides – review the information?
I know how I’d feel. I’d be spitting nails.
As of Wednesday evening, nobody has seen the information Nunes spoke of, but Nunes, apparently.
I’m sure we’ll hear more about this, as Trump is already touting this as proof that he was right, even though the information said the surveillance was “incidental” and that President Obama had not ordered it.
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