Spicer Disputes Need For Independent Probe Of Russian Election Meddling

White House press secretary Sean Spicer speaks during the daily press briefing, Thursday, March 30, 2017, at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that he did not believe an independent investigation was necessary to look into possible connections between Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign and President Donald Trump’s associates.

The New York Times reported Thursday, shortly before Spicer’s daily briefing, that two White House officials helped provide House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) with intelligence reports that purportedly showed that information relating to Trump and his associates had been incidentally swept up by U.S. intelligence services. Nunes had previously said he had not secretly worked with White House officials in the course of the investigation.

“Don’t the daily questions about this make it necessary to have some type of outside, independent investigation to lift any lingering cloud that there may be?” NBC News’ Kristen Welker asked Spicer.

“No,” he responded. “I think you have two committees looking into this. The FBI has been looking into this, as they mentioned at the hearing. How many do you want?”

“Do you believe the House Intelligence investigation is still valid given all of these questions?” she followed up.

“How is it not valid?” he said.

“All these questions about where Devin Nunes got his information from, whether it’s politically motived,” Welker asked. “To lift that cloud, would it not be smart to have an outside, independent investigation?”

“Right now I think you’ve got the FBI, probably other intelligence committees that looked into this, 17 of them issued a report earlier in terms of involvement in the 2016 election,” Spicer said. “And then you’ve got two congressional committees looking into it. So I’m not really sure the exact need.”

“I understand sometimes there’s a need for you guys to have more information and more sources,” he continued. “I think this is being done in a responsible way where people are discussing what they know at an appropriate classification level and information is being shared.”

During Thursday’s briefing, Spicer refused to address the New York Times’ reporting.

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