House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) apologized to his colleagues behind closed doors Thursday after going straight to the media and then the White House to claim that Trump transition staffers’ communications were “incidentally” picked up by the U.S. intelligence community, according to one Democrat on the committee.
What exactly he’s sorry for, we don’t know.
Asked by CNN’s John Berman what Nunes apologized for, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) said “that’s not clear.”
“Adam Schiff first raised the issue, ‘Why didn’t you tell me, why didn’t you go through channels here within the SCIF, a secure area where we do our business,’” Speier said. “After a few minutes, Devin Nunes did apologize in a generic way.”
Nunes said Thursday that it was “just a judgment call” to go to the press and to the President with the revelation about surveillance of Trump staffers, which he said was unrelated to the FBI investigation into whether there was any “cooperation” between Trump’s campaign and Russian officials, before briefing his fellow members. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the committee, and others argued that Nunes damaged the credibility of their investigation by doing so.
