Democrats Call for Nunes to Step Aside From Trump-Russia Probe

(Bloomberg) -- Congressional Democrats are stepping up calls for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes to recuse himself from the panel’s probe of Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election.

The committee’s top Democrat, Adam Schiff, was joined by other panel members and Democratic leaders in demanding Nunes step aside due to his service on President Donald Trump’s transition team and after admitting Monday that he visited the White House to view intelligence documents that he used to bolster Trump’s claims of surveillance by former President Barack Obama.

“It’s time for Devin Nunes to leave this investigation, let alone lead it,” Representative Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat who serves on the intelligence panel, told MSNBC Tuesday.
“If this was done the proper way, they could have brought it over, shared it with members of both parties of the committee. This was done because the White House wanted it to be done.”

His comments came after Schiff said Monday that he believes the public has lost confidence “that matters involving the president’s campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman.”

Nunes also came under criticism from Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who said on NBC Tuesday that Nunes’s trip to the White House was “a little bizarre” and that “he has to repair the damage.” Graham stopped short of calling for Nunes to recuse himself from leading the investigation.

Meetings Canceled

As calls grew on Capitol Hill for an expanded probe into Russian meddling, the committee canceled its remaining meetings for the week, including a closed-door session that was expected Tuesday so that panelists could question FBI Director James Comey and former National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers, who “could not come in” as hoped, committee spokesman Jack Langer said. He said the committee was trying to reschedule a new time for the meeting.

Trump took to Twitter late Monday to rehash a complaint he leveled during the campaign -- that the State Department under his election opponent, Hillary Clinton, approved the Russian takeover of uranium assets in the U.S. after investors in the deal paid money to the Clinton Foundation. The Clintons have denied any wrongdoing.

“Why isn’t the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech.......money to Bill, the Hillary Russian ‘reset,’ praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company. Trump Russia story is a hoax,” Trump said in a series of tweets.

Unidentified Source

Nunes, a California Republican, declined to identify his source, but said it was an intelligence official, not a White House staffer.

Nunes told Bloomberg View’s Eli Lake that the meeting occurred on the White House grounds last Tuesday because it was the most convenient secure location with a computer connected to the system that included the reports, which are only distributed within the executive branch. 

“We don’t have networked access to these kinds of reports in Congress,” said Nunes. The White House said it learned from public reports that Nunes confirmed he was on White House grounds last Tuesday.

The way Nunes got the information and whom he got it from has emerged as a new twist in the attempt by the White House to bolster a Trump tweet accusing his predecessor of spying on him. The day after Nunes reviewed the intelligence on the grounds of the executive mansion -- according to his latest account -- he held a news conference at the Capitol, then rushed to the White House to brief Trump in person.

Questions Deflected

Nunes repeatedly deflected questions last week about whether the White House provided the information to him, and that has threatened to derail the House intelligence committee investigation.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi separately called on House Speaker Paul Ryan to replace Nunes as head of the intelligence panel.

“This is a matter of such gravity we need to get it right,” Schumer of New York said Monday on the Senate floor. “There should be no doubt about the integrity and impartiality of the investigation, either in the executive branch where the FBI and Department of Justice are looking into it, or the Congress.”

“The Chair of the House Intelligence has a serious responsibility to the Congress and to the country,” Pelosi said in a statement Monday. “Chairman Nunes’ discredited behavior has tarnished that office.”

Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said, “Speaker Ryan has full confidence that Chairman Nunes is conducting a thorough, fair, and credible investigation.”

On Monday, Nunes said he has been hearing for several weeks about the existence of intelligence reports that contained details on Trump’s transition team.

“The reports included details about the Trump transition, meetings of Trump and senior advisers; they were distributed throughout the intelligence community and to the White House,” Nunes said in the interview. “In some cases, there was additional unmasking of Trump transition team officials.”

Russian Meddling

Several congressional committees, as well as the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, are investigating Russian meddling in the U.S. election, including the hacking and release of Democratic emails. For the House Intelligence Committee, that probe has expanded into the explosive question of whether anyone close to Trump abetted the effort. Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, and veteran Republican operative Roger Stone offered Friday to testify before Nunes’s committee.

Questions about how Nunes received intelligence intercepts -- which he described as routine, legal surveillance that picked up conversations with Trump aides during the transition -- have raised new doubts about his panel’s ability to conduct a nonpartisan inquiry.

A Democrat on the panel said Monday that the disclosure that Nunes viewed the new documents on White House grounds -- with no other panel members present -- means that the existing inquiries aren’t sufficient.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday at a news conference that the administration had no reason to take issue with Nunes’s explanation of the visit and declined to “get in the middle” of the committee investigation. He added that there’s a difference between a leak and a review of the situation.

“Someone who is cleared to share classified information with someone else cleared is not a leak,” Spicer said.

--With assistance from Justin Sink Margaret Talev Jennifer Jacobs Billy House and Jennifer Epstein

To contact the reporter on this story: Terrence Dopp in Washington at tdopp@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Wasserman, Elizabeth Titus