http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...before-he-made-trump-surveillance-claims.html Devin Nunes Vanished the Night Before He Made Trump Surveillance Claims The Republican intelligence chairman got a message and jumped out of an Uber. The next morning he made a bombshell claim based on classified information. Tim Mak 03.24.17 7:25 PM ET Hours before the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee announced his shocking claims about surveillance of the Trump transition team on Wednesday morning, he practically disappeared. Rep. Devin Nunes was traveling with a senior committee staffer in an Uber on Tuesday evening when he received a communication on his phone, three committee officials and a former national security official with ties to the committee told The Daily Beast. After the message, Nunes left the car abruptly, leaving his own staffer in the dark about his whereabouts. By the next morning, Nunes hastily announced a press conference. His own aides, up to the most senior level, did not know what their boss planned to say next. Nunes’ choice to keep senior staff out of the loop was highly unusual. The Republican chairman had a bombshell to drop. “The intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition,” Nunes told reporters Wednesday morning. Nunes reviewed “dozens of reports” produced by the U.S. intelligence community that showed this, he added. Though the surveillance was done legally, Nunes said he was “alarmed” that information about transition officials was widely disseminated throughout the government, and that in some cases their names were “unmasked,” meaning not hidden as is usually the case when when a U.S. person’s information is collected through foreign surveillance. Immediately after the press conference, Nunes went to the White House to brief the president. Afterwards, Trump said he felt “somewhat” vindicated by the briefing for his false claim that President Obama “wiretapped” him during the election. (Nunes has maintained this is not true.) Democrats and Republicans were taken by surprise by Nunes’ actions. Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, hinted at the unusual circumstances Friday during a press conference, criticizing the chairman for “what appears to be a dead of night excursion.” It appears Schiff was being literal. “All of us are essentially in the dark,” Schiff told reporters Friday. “It’s not just that he hasn’t shared them with Democrats on the committee, he hasn’t shared them with Republicans on the committee.” “I’m the only one who’s seen the documents, as far as I know,” Nunes said Friday. Nunes’ office had no comment for this story. “There’s all kinds of speculation like this floating around about his source, his whereabouts, the circumstances of his announcement, etc. I’m not going to comment on it,” his spokesman said. Where Nunes went and who his source was for this information—which he said was still incomplete—is now a mystery with serious repercussions for the independence of his investigation into Russian interference with U.S. elections. “This information was legally brought to me by sources who thought that we should know it,” Nunes added. Nunes said the documents involved “legally collected foreign intelligence under FISA,” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and they confirmed U.S. persons were incidentally collected during surveillance. This information would have been classified, by the very nature of its contents—and would have needed to be reviewed in a special location. “If we’re assuming in good faith that the chairman of the intelligence committee made sure to conduct himself within the bounds of the law, then any classified material reviewed by him would have needed to be reviewed in a secure facility,” explained Bradley Moss, a lawyer specializing in national security clearances. “There are a very small number of them in the general area of the District of Columbia. And there are log entries to enter any SCIF [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility]. Assuming that whoever gave it to him was authorized to have that information, he would have had to have visited a SCIF.” Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee have suggested that Nunes’ source was the White House, looking to distract from FBI Director James Comey’s revelation Monday that the bureau is investigating whether members of Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia. “Where did [Nunes] receive this information? From our knowledge, no one on his staff and no other members were a part of this,” Rep. Eric Swalwell said on MSNBC on Thursday. “So that means it had to be outside of the Capitol. So, did he go to another agency? And does that mean that the White House was a part of this? It sure seems like the White House after what came out on Monday was scrambling to do anything it could to put another smoke bomb into this investigation.” Even before this controversy, Nunes’ independence had been questioned. Nunes had been a member of the president’s transition team, and his office had previously acknowledged that he had, at the request of the White House, spoken to a reporter to challenge reports of links between Trump associates and Russia. The White House denied any knowledge of Nunes’ source. “I’m not aware of where he got the documents from. I don’t know,” said Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Friday. “I don’t know where he got them from. [Nunes] didn’t state it. So I don’t have anything for you.” “We don’t talk about sources at this committee. We want more people to come forward,” Nunes added Friday. The president did, however, promise evidence supporting his wiretap claim would be given to the House or Senate intelligence committee. Trump told Fox News that he would “be submitting things before the committee very soon.” “We will be submitting certain things, and I will be, perhaps, speaking about this next week,” Trump said last week. This has not yet occurred, as far as the public knows. On Friday, Nunes also announced that the committee controlled by Republicans had indefinitely postponed a scheduled open hearing Tuesday with former national security officials, replacing it with a closed hearing with the heads of the FBI and NSA. “For House Republicans and the White House, this is about obstruction and distraction,” Rep. Mike Quigley told The Daily Beast. “And this week there were three: that Obama wiretapped Trump tower, number two, this middle of the night excursion, and number three, canceling the open hearings. I just tell my colleagues that we have to keep up the pressure so they don’t turn the lights out.”
Devin Nunes Vanished the Night Before He Made Trump Surveillance Claims LOL, this kind of headline starts to elevate the situation to the level of birtherism, do you think he figured the info out, then went and met with the russians in a secret hideout, so they could find a plot to lie to the american public? Whats the story here? Reports have already said he was so furious when he heard about leaking within the intel community he stormed out of the place while fellow republicans tried to calm him down. LOL, funniest shit ever, total nonsense conspiracy theory headline printed to make naieve minds think there is something more here. This is on the same level as Alex Jones.
I don't think he met with Russians,I think he met with Trump or Trumps people.That wouldn't be birthrism or Alex Jones level crazy imo.Trump lies and he has no problem asking his people to lie for him(He even tried to get Comey and The FBI to lie for him).The fact that Nunes was on Trumps transition team should exclude him from this investigation imo.
Don't show me a potential 'smoking gun'. Show me a smoking gun. Until they have something to show, they have nothing to show.
Democrats are the Birthers Now By Wayne Allyn Root This would be really funny, if it wasn’t so ridiculous and hypocritical. For eight long years Democrats called anyone on the right who questioned Obama’s birth or background a terrible name: “Birther.” I’ve never been a “birther” in my life. Not for even one minute. During Obama’s eight years in office, I made over 10,000 media appearances and I never brought up Obama’s birth once, nor ever made the case that he wasn’t born in America. Yet liberal journalists and TV hosts falsely labeled me a “birther” anyway. Any conservative who questioned any aspect of Obama's agenda was labeled and libeled as a (gasp) "birther." Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Guess who the birthers are now? Liberal Democrats. The unhinged looney left is questioning everything about Trump’s past, present and future - no matter how bizarre, inconsequential or just plain stupid. First, liberals should be labeled as “TAXERS.” Liberal Democrats have screamed nonstop from the highest mountains for months about Trump’s taxes. Why? They claimed it was because President Trump never released his tax returns, so they had every right to call him a tax cheat. But to quote the definition set by that liberal journalist (and hypocrite) in Nevada, isn’t that questioning the background of the president? That makes liberals TAXERS. And hasn’t this insane, over-the-top, liberal attack on Trump’s taxes (and before that, Mitt Romney’s taxes) proven every so-called “Obama birther” justified? After all, if Trump didn’t release his taxes and that gave liberals every right to question his taxes and call him terrible names, weren’t conservatives equally justified to question Obama’s birth because he refused to release his birth certificate for so long? Why is it different? If Obama had bothered to answer his critics from the start by releasing his birth certificate, no conservative would have ever made it an issue. When Obama did finally - under massive pressure - release his birth certificate, what did liberals say? They called so-called “birthers” all kinds of bad names. They were labeled as jokes, idiots, buffoons, conspiracy theorists and of course, “racists." But didn’t President Trump just destroy liberal critics who made up all kinds of conspiracy theories about his tax returns? Rachel Maddow played the role of Geraldo and opened Al Capone’s vault to find…nothing. Trump paid $38 million in taxes- in one year! And…he paid a higher percentage in taxes than Obama, Bernie Sanders, Warren Buffett…and I’m sure Rachel Maddow, too. Doesn’t this make Maddow a “TAXER” and conspiracy theorist? Funny, but now that the shoe is on the other foot, I don't hear the liberal media labeling these "taxers" with all kinds of terrible names, now that Trump has proven them wrong. I guess that's because the media are all "taxers" themselves! By the way, let’s all demand to see Rachel Maddow’s tax returns for the past ten years. In the words of Harry Reid, “Someone whispered to me that Rachel Maddow is a tax cheat. Now she must respond, or I guess it’s true.” Secondly, liberals should be labeled as “RUSHERS.” How about this insane Russian conspiracy theory espoused by every Democrat in the world? They all insist Russia hacked the presidential election and Trump must have colluded in these crimes with Putin. Well actually…no. There isn’t a shred of evidence that Russia actually influenced the election. Nor is it a fact that Russia was even the hacker. The latest Wikileaks dump proves that our own CIA is flawless at hacking anyone or anything, and then blaming it on Russia. This is their expertise in life. So, how could any Democrat know with certainty who actually hacked Hillary? Finally, even if Russia was responsible for the hacking, there isn’t a shred of evidence that Trump had anything to do with it. As a matter of fact, the top congressman studying the case just stated the only crime committed was by the government bureaucrat who leaked General Flynn’s private conversation with the Russians. So, aren’t liberal Democrat leaders who keep blaming their election loss on Russian hacking all “conspiracy theorists”? And shouldn’t they be labeled with a birther-like name? Aren’t they all “RUSHERS.” It’s amazing, isn’t it? Turnabout is fair play. The entire Democrat Party has become crazed conspiracy theorists. They are all questioning the background of our President based on rumors, guesses, innuendo and libel. The Democrat Party is nothing but a bunch of “birthers.” “TAXERS” and “RUSHERS.” Sad, but true. And funny as hell. http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/03/democrats_are_the_birthers_now.html
So when is this Trump surrogate /former Trump transition team member going to reveal this smoking gun?
The facts to this point don't back up Trump, but there is more than incidental collection of Trump campaign members. They collected the intel, unmasked the Trump campaign members, which is illegal, shared the identity of the campaigns members between agencies, which is illegal, then cherry picked and leaked portions of the conversations of Trump campgain members, which is illegal. According to the New York Slimes, some of this intel was given to members of the Obama White House. I want to know who gave it to them, and who received it.