Media Claim Trump And Nunes Are Engaging In A Massive Cover-Up. But Where's The Crime?
The media’s theory: a cover-up is in progress.
That theory gained new life thanks to Nunes’ newly-uncovered secretive visit to the White House, where he met with an unspecified official who presented him with intelligence information regarding the Trump team and Russia, the day before Nunes said publicly that the intelligence community had surveilled Team Trump. Nunes said that he went to the White House in order to use a secure computer for perusing intelligence information – but as Lachlan Markay of The Daily Beast points out, “This is real shady. The House Intel Committee has its own SCIF. There’d be no need to use the one at the WH.”
Nunes’ defense is that the information was only available to the executive branch, and that as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes can see such material. Nunes hasn’t revealed what intelligence official communicated the information to him. And as The Weekly Standard reports, “Unknown, too, is what sort of protocols for revealing these classified documents did Nunes's source have to abide by in order to allow Nunes access to the system for executive-branch only reports. Nunes spokesman Jack Langer declined to comment, and a senior White House aide claims to be unaware of any such protocols.” The next day, Nunes went to brief Trump on the material he saw, all before informing his colleagues on the House Intelligence Committee.
The media’s theory: a cover-up is in progress.
That theory gained new life thanks to Nunes’ newly-uncovered secretive visit to the White House, where he met with an unspecified official who presented him with intelligence information regarding the Trump team and Russia, the day before Nunes said publicly that the intelligence community had surveilled Team Trump. Nunes said that he went to the White House in order to use a secure computer for perusing intelligence information – but as Lachlan Markay of The Daily Beast points out, “This is real shady. The House Intel Committee has its own SCIF. There’d be no need to use the one at the WH.”
Nunes’ defense is that the information was only available to the executive branch, and that as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes can see such material. Nunes hasn’t revealed what intelligence official communicated the information to him. And as The Weekly Standard reports, “Unknown, too, is what sort of protocols for revealing these classified documents did Nunes's source have to abide by in order to allow Nunes access to the system for executive-branch only reports. Nunes spokesman Jack Langer declined to comment, and a senior White House aide claims to be unaware of any such protocols.” The next day, Nunes went to brief Trump on the material he saw, all before informing his colleagues on the House Intelligence Committee.
