Report: WH Officials Helped House Intel Chairman Get Trump Surveillance Info

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By Kody Fairfield

A report from the New York Times alleges that a pair of White House officials played a role in providing the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee with the intelligence reports that showed that President Trump and his associates were incidentally swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies.

The report from NYT claims that Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), who has refused to release his sources, held a press conference on March 22 to explain that he had intelligence reports on the surveillance of the Trump transition team, which occurred under the Obama Administration. In his statements, he has described his sources as whistle-blowers trying to expose wrongdoing at great risk to themselves.

Several current American officials identified the White House officials as Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a lawyer who works on national security issues at the White House Counsel’s Office and formerly worked on the staff of the House Intelligence Committee.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment, explained NYT.

The report alleges that Cohen-Watnick began reviewing highly classified reports detailing the intercepted communications of foreign officials, shortly after President Trump tweeted about being surveilled.

From NYT:

Officials said the reports consisted primarily of ambassadors and other foreign officials talking about how they were trying to develop contacts within Mr. Trump’s family and inner circle in advance of his inauguration.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the intelligence and to avoid angering Mr. Cohen-Watnick and Mr. Ellis. Officials say Mr. Cohen-Watnick has been reviewing the reports from his fourth-floor office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where the National Security Council is based.

This is similar to the way that Nunes has described the intelligence himself, as a look at foreign officials which overlapped with those in the Trump Administration.

This story is ongoing as co-chair of the House Intel committee has just announce that he is holding an impromptu press conference any minute now.

Should more information become available, this story will be updated.

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