Devin Nunes Just Showed Why Investigation Needs To Move Out Of Congress

Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, had a press conference today where he claims that he has information that Trump transition and administration officials’ communications were “incidentally collected” in the process of what he termed a legal “normal foreign surveillance” activity. Nunes went on to assert that the individuals were identified and that information was “widely disseminated” among intelligence agencies. In addition, Nunes at first confirmed and then hedged that some communications from Trump himself were also collected.

There is, at present, nothing illegal about the incidental collection of US citizens’ communications in a typical foreign surveillance activity. But those communications are supposed to remain confidential and are not to be used unless the citizen himself becomes the target of an investigation. Nunes is saying that the “unmasking” of these administration officials is a crime. Of course, Nunes himself is releasing potentially classified information with this announcement, an act that Nunes condemned of others yesterday as illegally leaking, although he claims that he was alerted to this information “by sources who thought we ought to know it”.

But by far the most disturbing detail that Nunes provided was that he was heading to the White House this afternoon to brief Trump because “they need to see it”. This is frankly incredible. The head of an investigation into possible criminal collusion with a foreign power is taking classified information to a potential target of that investigation and briefing him about that information. And he knows Trump will pass on that information to the other targets in the probe. This is borderline obstruction of justice in my non-legal opinion. And it shows, once and for all, that this investigation needs to move from Congress to some independent entity. An investigation where the lead investigator is briefing the potential target on details of the investigation is not investigation at all. It is a sham and a cover-up.