White House press secretary Sean Spicer mostly avoided discussing a claim from the chair of the House Intelligence Committee that information on President Donald Trump and members of transition team was “incidentally collected” during an investigation unrelated to Russian interference in the election.
“The chairman of one of the two committees that we asked to look into this wants to share his findings, or what he knows,” Spicer said during his daily press briefing, referring to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, that the White House asked to look into Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that President Obama ordered wiretapping on Trump Tower.
“I think that is exactly how we’ve talked about this working,” Spicer said. “But I will leave it Congressman Nunes to come up and to brief, and share his thoughts. I don’t know what his plan is.”
Rep. Devin Nunes nodded in the affirmative during a press briefing Wednesday when asked if Trump himself was “also part of that incidental collection.” That the information was collected “incidentally” implies that Trump and transition staffers were not the targets of the surveillance. Nunes said the intelligence was legally collected under a FISA warrant.
Nunes did not present anything that would indicate that President Barack Obama had ordered the surveillance, as Trump alleged in a series of unsubstantiated tweets.
“I don’t want to start talking or guessing what he may say or may not say or explain this,” Spicer said later in the briefing. “I think that we will have more information or hope to have more information once the President is briefed and to find out what else has gone on in terms of additional information on this. But I do think it is a startling revelation and there’s a lot of questions that need to get asked.”
So which rules was the FISA warrant using? Only people who talked to russian intelligence directly, or also the people they talked to?
I don’t completely understand what Nunes is doing. Obviously he is carrying water for Trump, but is that all? It really isn’t helpful to give the impression—right or wrong—that Trump and his people were massively surveilled. A lot of people will think this means he was really corrupt.
This is not the first time Spicer has said Trump’s actions were “incidental”. No doubt Spicer also thought the women who were violated by Trump’s “incidental” hand grabbing were the perpetrators of dastardly acts of minding their own businesses.
Notice that Trump’s info was incidentally collected not regarding Russia. That is, the IC was investigating another shady foreigner that Trump’s team was in contact with. How many scandals are there?
Multiple sources confirming that Nunes didn’t share this info with Schiff. And why is Nunes going to the WH to brief Trump? Because Intel won’t because IC has something on Trump?