US

Trump says he is ‘somewhat vindicated’ by spying disclosure

Republican congressman says president may have been ‘swept up’ in foreign surveillance

US House intelligence committee Chairman Devin Nunes speaks to reporters after meeting Donald Trump at the White House on Wednsday to brief him on intelligence reports he says shows the president or his associates may have been “incidentally” swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Emmarie Huetteman and Matthew Rosenberg in Washington
Thu Mar 23 2017 - 12:37

For weeks, US president Donald Trump has insisted that his predecessor, Barack Obama, tapped his phones even as the FBI director and members of Mr Trump's own partysaid there was no evidence for his charge.

But on Wednesday, Mr Trump got a big assist from a powerful House of Representatives Republican who said the president or his closest associates may have been “incidentally” swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies.

Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, introduced the new claim into the deepening controversy over Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Democrats quickly denounced the disclosure and said it bolstered the need for an independent investigation to replace the House inquiry being led by Mr Nunes.

Mr Trump responded positively to Mr Nunes's remarks. "I very much appreciated the fact that they found what they found," the president told reporters at the White House, evidently referring to sources Mr Nunes said he would not name. Mr Trump said he felt vindicated, up to a point. "I somewhat do," he said.

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In fact, Mr Nunes said Wednesday that he had no evidence to support Mr Trump’s claims of wiretapping. Mr Nunes also acknowledged that the incidental intelligence gathering on Trump associates – during the presidential transition late last year, when Mr Obama was in office – was not necessarily unlawful or inappropriate.

US intelligence agencies typically monitor foreign officials of allied and hostile countries, and they routinely sweep up Americans who may be taking part in the conversation or are being spoken about.

The real issue, Mr Nunes told reporters, was that he could figure out the identities of Trump associates from reading reports about intercepted communications that were shared among Obama administration officials with top security clearances. He said some Trump associates were also identified by name in the reports. Normally intelligence agencies mask the identities of US citizens who get incidentally swept up in intercepted communications.

Multiple investigations

But nothing about the investigations into Russian election interference is routine. In making his claims, first in a news conference on Capitol Hill and then in the West Wing driveway after meeting Mr Trump at the White House, Mr Nunes, who served on the Trump transition team, appeared to be trying to steer the public debate away from the multiple investigations into whether Trump associates colluded with Russia in the election.

“I don’t want to get too much into the details, but these were intelligence reports, and it brings up a lot of concern about whether things were properly minimised or not,” said Mr Nunes, who said the surveillance was not related to Russia. “What I have read bothers me, and I think it should bother the president himself and his team because I think some of it seems to be inappropriate.”

Mr Nunes, who has spent months assailing leaks of classified information about Mr Trump from anonymous officials, refused on Wednesday to identify who had allowed him to read the intelligence reports on the surveillance. He would only say that the people had proper security clearances and needed to be protected.

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, who has also complained about leaks of classified information, had no such quibble with what Mr Nunes disclosed on Wednesday. "I think it's startling information," he told reporters.

Despite the plaudits from the White House, Democrats said Mr Nunes had badly damaged his credibility in his apparent attempt to shore up Mr Trump’s. His decision to dash off to the White House and brief Mr Trump in the middle of his committee’s investigation into Russian interference – which includes the president – raised questions about the independence and viability of the House inquiry he is leading.

Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said Mr Nunes needed to decide whether he was going to oversee the committee or be a White House surrogate. "He can't do both," Mr Schiff said in a hastily arranged news conference in response to Mr Nunes. "This is deeply troubling."

Mr Schiff said that "there is more than circumstantial evidence now" of collusion between Trump associates and Russian officials. The House intelligence committee is running one of three investigations into Russian interference in the election (the Senate and the FBI are the other two). Before Wednesday, Democrats had already expressed scepticism that the House investigation could rise above partisan politics, and Mr Nunes's statements deepened their concerns.

Mr Schiff, who said he had not seen the information Mr Nunes cited, said the mere fact that Trump associates could be identified in intelligence reports, all of which remain classified, “does not indicate that there was any flaw in the procedures followed by the intelligence agencies”.

Trump associates

Current and former intelligence officials backed up Mr Schiff's assessment. "If the FBI has asked for information about Trump or any of his cronies relative to NSA collection overseas, it wasn't for grins," said Frank Montoya Jr, a former FBI agent who served as the government's senior counterintelligence official.

They “asked because there was a legitimate concern about suspicious behaviour that might warrant an investigation, or because an investigation was already under way. The fact that this news isn’t about Russia only makes me more concerned about the actions of our president.”

Apart from names of Trump associates, it was unclear what exactly was in the intercepts. Mr Nunes said there were multiple Trump associates named in them, but Mr Schiff said it appeared that only one person was identified by name. Mr Schiff said he came to that conclusion after speaking directly with Mr Nunes.

Mr Nunes’s concern, Mr Schiff said, “was he could still figure out the identities of some of the parties even though the names were masked”. Democrats and intelligence officials questioned whether Mr Nunes had violated the law in openly discussing classified reports.

Mr Nunes said he had not broken the law even as he acknowledged that the reports were classified. Several people are known to be under scrutiny in the Russia investigation, including Paul Manafort, who stepped down as chairman of the Trump campaign in August, amid reports his name was in a secret ledger in Ukraine listing off-the-books payments for consulting work he did for a Russian-backed government there.

On Wednesday, the Associated Press reported new details of Mr Manafort's activities in Ukraine, including a proposal he is said to have drafted in 2005 to do similar work for pro-Russian interests in other former Soviet republics. The plan was presented to a Russian oligarch with whom Mr Manafort had a business relationship, Oleg Deripaska, who agreed to pay Manafort $10 million for the work. Mr Deripaska is a close ally of Russia's president Vladimir Putin.

It is unclear how far the plan got or whether money changed hands. Mr Manafort issued a statement denying he did any work for the Russian government. Mr Deripaska, through a spokeswoman, said the only payments he made to Mr Manafort were related to private business ventures.

New York Times

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