White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Wednesday said that questions about House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Devin Nunes’ (R-CA) meeting with a mystery source on White House grounds are the congressman’s problem, not his.
Asked to follow up on questions from Monday about how Nunes was cleared to visit White House grounds and whom he met, Spicer said: “I don’t have anything for you on that at this time. I have asked some preliminary questions. I have not gotten answers yet.”
Nunes has faced criticism from Democrats and a few Republicans after revelations that he met with a secret source on White House grounds a day before he claimed that communications of members of President Donald Trump’s transition were swept up by U.S. intelligence as part of incidental collection.
Spicer says he is still looking into who cleared Nunes in. No answer yet. Former WH aides say it would take only a few seconds to find out.
— Jeff Zeleny (@jeffzeleny) March 29, 2017
“I think those are questions for him,” Spicer said when pressed. “There’s a slippery slope that we’re talking about here, because if we start looking into certain things, then the accusation the next day is going to be ‘You looked into this, can you look into that, why did you ask this person or not.'”
“You do have authority about whether he gets into this building and can review secured information on this site,” CBS’ Major Garrett said.
“But how he conducts himself with his members, when and where he shares things, etc. are issues for him and the committee and the House of Representatives, not for us,” Spicer replied.
Nunes on Monday said that he “wasn’t trying to hide” the meeting.
“Look, if I really wanted to, I could have snuck onto the grounds late at night and probably nobody would have seen me,” he said. “I’m quite sure people in the West Wing had no idea that I was there.”
“There’s a slippery slope that we’re talking about here, because if we start looking into certain things, then the accusation the next day is going to be ‘You looked into this, can you look into that, why did you ask this person or not.’’”
All together now …
"How slippery is it?"
Alternate Headline:
Issues, issues. Everybody’s got issues. What Spicer doesn’t want to say is that Nunes got into the White House grounds by sneaking over the fence, and the Secret Service didn’t catch him until he was in the building.
It’s amazing to watch them try to outrun this.
Answer: Not slippery enough.