Rather than confirming Trump’s claims, the disclosures by
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), chairman of the House committee, sparked a
political uproar that threatened to obliterate attempts to conduct a
bipartisan congressional investigation into whether Trump campaign aides
coordinated with Russian intelligence agencies during the 2016
presidential race.
Nunes said he had learned of “dozens”
of classified reports that recounted communications between members of
Trump’s transition team — and possibly the then-president-elect himself —
and individuals who were legally targeted for government eavesdropping
for foreign intelligence.
When asked by a reporter whether he felt vindicated
by the disclosure, Trump responded, "I somewhat do. I must tell you, I
somewhat do. I very much appreciated the fact that they found what they
found."
Although
Nunes said the surveillance had picked up Trump transition officials
inadvertently and appeared to be authorized by the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court, he said he was alarmed that “details about U.S.
persons involved in the incoming administration with little or no
apparent foreign intelligence value were widely disseminated in
intelligence community reports.”
In response, Rep. Adam
B. Schiff of Burbank, the top Democrat on the House committee, blasted
Nunes for going to the White House and briefing Trump on the material
before he shared it with other members of the committee.
"The
chairman will either need to decide if he's leading an investigation
into conduct which includes allegations of potential coordination
between the Trump campaign and the Russians, or he is going to act as a
surrogate of the White House. Because he cannot do both," Schiff said at
a Capitol Hill news conference.
He
called Nunes’ actions a “profound irregularity,” adding, “I have
expressed my grave concerns with the chairman that a credible
investigation cannot be conducted this way."
The unusual
brawl between the two Californians came two days after they led a
nationally televised House hearing that showed an unusual degree of
comity and bipartisan cooperation. That goal now appears in jeopardy.
"Chairman
Nunes is deeply compromised and he cannot possibly lead an honest
investigation,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco).
During Monday’s hearing, FBI Director
James B. Comey
and National Security Agency Director Michael S. Rogers said they had
“no information” to confirm Trump’s claims on Twitter that he was
wiretapped.
Comey also disclosed that the FBI was
conducting a counter-intelligence investigation into whether Trump’s
aides coordinated with Russian authorities. That investigation began
last July and officials said Wednesday it was separate from the
surveillance Nunes disclosed.
Nunes and other Republicans
used the five-hour hearing to argue that leaks of classified
information, especially those involving U.S. surveillance, were a threat
to national security and should be prosecuted.
The
actual targets of the surveillance that picked up the Trump team’s
conversations were not disclosed. It could have involved foreign
diplomats based in the United States or other foreign government
officials.
Nunes implied that unidentified sources who
provided him the information came from within the intelligence
community. Former congressional aides disputed Nunes’ claim that
intelligence officials had acted improperly in conducting the
surveillance or circulating the reports.
“Without knowing
exactly what was brought to Nunes, it’s hard to know whether or not
this is serious or the normal course of business of our intelligence
community trying to figure out what foreign governments are up to,” said
Mieke Eoyang, a former House Intelligence Committee staffer who is now
with Third Way, a Washington think tank.
Essential Washington: Updates on the Trump administration and the rest of Washington »
Under
the law, identities of Americans whose communications are picked up by
intelligence eavesdropping of foreign targets are supposed to be kept
confidential unless the conversations relate to espionage or some other
potential crime that warrants further investigation.
Details
about Americans picked up by surveillance can also be included in
intelligence reports circulated within the government — a step known as
“unmasking” — if senior officials decided that the information is
necessary to understand the intelligence.
The FBI is
required to get a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act, a federal law governing eavesdropping, in order to intercept
telephone conversations, emails, texts and other types of communications
involving foreign intelligence operatives and Americans suspected of
espionage.
As long as the identities of Trump transition
officials were properly masked, intelligence agencies would have few
qualms about circulating intelligence reports about what a foreign
leader said, especially if the conversation seemed to touch on possible
policy changes by the foreign government, the former officials said.
U.S.
intelligence agencies are always trying to gather information about
possible policy shifts by foreign governments, and their conversations
with transition officials would be a possible source of such
information, former officials say.
It is also possible
that such reports were written to leave little doubt that the foreign
officials’ conversations had been with a Trump transition official, they
said.
In some cases, intelligence officials may have
decided to unmask transition officials involved in the conversation to
make the significance of the intelligence report clear.
"The
president needs to know that these intelligence reports are out there,"
said Nunes. He said "it appears” the surveillance was authorized by
FISA warrants.
Trump’s decision during his
transition to shun many briefings from U.S. government officials and to
use his own channels to reach out to foreign leaders may have
contributed to an increased flow of intelligence reports about what
foreign leaders were saying, the former officials said.
On
Dec. 2, for example, Trump spoke with Tsai Ing-wen, the president of
Taiwan, in a conversation that at least temporarily threatened to upset
delicate relations between the U.S. and the Chinese government.
It was believed to be the first call between a president
or president-elect with a Taiwanese leader since 1979, when the U.S.
recognized Chinese governance and cut ties with Taiwan.
Nunes said he wants to know who wrote the classified reports, and "who ordered the unmasking of additional names."
Schiff
said that Nunes had told him the Trump transition officials were not
identified in the intelligence reports, but that Nunes said “he could
still figure out the probable identity” from other information in the
reports.
During Monday’s hearing, Republicans repeatedly
cited the case of Michael Flynn, who was ousted as Trump's national
security advisor last month after news reports disclosed that he had
misled Vice President Mike Pence about phone conversations with the
Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak.
The calls were picked
up by U.S. surveillance targeting the Russian envoy, and a description
of the contents was leaked to the Washington Post after the Justice
Department warned the White House that Flynn could be subject to
blackmail.
On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee
asked for records related to whether Flynn had fully disclosed his
foreign business dealings as required by law.
Flynn
received a fee for speaking at a 2015 Moscow event for RT, the Russian
news agency that U.S. intelligence considers a propaganda arm of the
Russian government.
The committee sent letters seeking
the records to to the FBI, the White House, the Defense Department and
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Such surveillance was likely how Flynn’s communications with Kislyak came to light, the former officials said.
No comments:
Post a Comment