The chairman of the House intelligence committee has backed down from his dramatic assertion …
Nunes Backs Down From Assertion Trump Was Monitored
by Ken Dilanian and Ali Vitali
The chairman of the House intelligence
committee has backed down from his dramatic assertion that Donald Trump
and his aides were "monitored," by U.S. spies — a claim the Republicans
have cited this week in fundraising emails.
Rep. Devin Nunes told reporters
Friday he can't be sure whether conversations among Trump or his aides
were captured in the surveillance that has become a source of
controversy since Nunes made it public in two news conferences this
week.
"He said he'll have to get all the documents
he requested from the (intelligence community) about this before he
knows for sure," his spokesman, Jack Langer, said earlier.
Nunes continued to refuse to say how he had
learned about the surveillance, including whether his source was in the
White House.
Langer asserted that Nunes did not explicitly
say Trump was spied on when he briefed reporters Wednesday that he was
"very concerned," that "the intelligence community
incidentally collected information about American citizens involved in the Trump transition."
As for Trump's assertion that Obama wiretapped
him, Nunes repeated Friday what he has said previously, telling
reporters, "That didn't happen."
Related: Trump Says He Feels 'Somewhat Vindicated' By Nunes Disclosure
However, Nunes on Wednesday had left an
impression — widely repeated in the news media — that the conversations
of Trump and his aides were picked up by American spies.
"I have seen intelligence reports that clearly
show the president elect and his team were at least monitored and
disseminated out," Nunes told reporters.
On Thursday, the Republican Congressional
Campaign Committee sent out a fundraising email about Nunes' remarks
with the subject line, "Confirmed: Obama Spied on Trump."
Nunes himself said he wasn't making that claim
— he said the surveillance was legal and there was no wiretap of Trump
Tower. But those sorts of assertions by Republicans raised the question
about whether what Nunes did was intended to give Trump cover for his
discredited claim that Obama "wiretapped" him.
Current and former officials say that it's
possible that Trump or his aides were picked up "incidentally" by
surveillance, if a foreign diplomat or other target called them or
emailed them. But it is far more likely, they say, that what Nunes was
talking about was surveillance of foreigners talking to foreigners, who
were speaking
about Trump and his aides.
Those conversations were then excerpted in intelligence reports that circulated around the government.
Surveillance of those conversations required
warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court if the
foreigners are in the United States — as diplomats, for example — or if
the communications traverse U.S. cables.
"I think this is overwhelmingly
not
information from or to an American," former NSA and CIA director Mike
Hayden told Chuck Todd Thursday on Meet the Press Daily. "I think this
is overwhelmingly information
about an American, foreign to foreign, in which they are doing what you would expect them to do."
Related: What Is Incidental Collection?
After any presidential transition, Hayden
continued, foreign embassies under surveillance are sending reports back
to their capitals analyzing "who's up, who's down."
To the extent that Americans are mentioned in
these documents, those names are supposed to be blacked out in any
intelligence report that is circulated around the government, unless the
identities are needed to understand the intelligence.
That issue appears to be what Nunes is now
focusing on. In some of the intelligence reports he reviewed, Nunes
said, the names of Trump aides were blacked out, but he could figure
them out anyway. In other reports, he said, the names had been
"unmasked," and he questioned whether that was appropriate.
Hayden, a Republican, suggested it might have been done to better understand the intelligence.
"You need to put flesh in there," he said.
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