The new revelation that it was White House staffers who provided information about “incidental collection” to House Intel Chair Devin Nunes — which he then breathlessly repeated to the press and then Trump without informing anyone else on his committee — was provided to him by one of his own formers staffers and a form Michael Flynn staffer at the SCIF in the Old Executive building on the White House grounds raises more questions than it answers.
We have known that prior to his announcement to the press last week that members of President Donald Trump’s transition team were caught up in “incidental surveillance” of foreign nationals, Nunes visited the White House grounds in order to view confidential information in a SCIF (Sensitive Confidential Information Facility). That information was believed to have been provided to him by his former staffer Michael Ellis — who was hired by the Trump White House on Mar. 7.
Now, the Times says that another White House staffer, a former deputy to disgraced National Security Adviser Mike Flynn named Ezra Cohen-Watnick was also involved with getting the information to Nunes.
“Mr. Cohen-Watnick is a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who was originally brought to the White House by Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser,” the report said.
So if these staffers had access to this information from inside the White House why exactly didn’t one or both them simply inform Reince Preibus and have Preibus brief Trump on it? I mean he should be used to people whispering convenient propoganda in his ear by now shouldn’t he? Also remember that the Trump administration spent two weeks refusing to answer questions about his “wiretap” tweets and only saying they would “let the Congress look into it”, but then on March 16th Trump mysteriously said “something will be coming out soon.”
How exactly did he know the time table so well unless the White House was deliberately putting it out in the first place using Nunes as a proxy as they had previously?
This what Trump said to Tucker Carlson on March 16th.
“But we will be submitting certain things and I will be perhaps speaking about this next week,” the president said, “but it’s right now before the committee, and I think I want it there. I have a lot of confidence in the committee. “
“And I think if you watch, if you watched Bret Baier, and what he was saying and what he was talking about, and how he mentioned the word “wiretap,” you would feel very confident that you could mention the name, he mentioned it. And other people have mentioned it.
But if you take a look at some of the things written about wiretapping and eavesdropping — and don’t forget when I say “wiretapping,” those words were in quotes, that really covers, because wiretapping is pretty old fashioned stuff, but that really covers surveillance and many other things. And nobody ever talks about the fact it was in quotes, but that’s a very important thing. But “wiretap” covers a lot of different things.”
“I think you’re going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks,” he concluded.
It seems to me like Trump already knew about this incidental collection — which frankly doesn’t prove the substance of his tweets claiming the “he was surveilled by Obama in Trump Tower” anyway — and would be completely normal as a result of normal transition communications and activities.
And remember Nunes said these collections didn’t involve Russians. So what exactly does anything Nunes was jumping in and out of cars over, and slipping into and out of the White House about, have to do with what Trump tweeted?
None of the reports Trump was referring to, in the New York Times or by Brett Baier, were involving Non-Russians, it was largely about Russian talking to Russians about Trump and his staff, not talking to them.
It seems like this “Leak” to Nunes was planned ahead of time to stir up smoke and confusion, and that if names were “unmasked” that was probably done by Ellis and Cohen-Watnick and the only person improperly revealing classified information to the public — in Nunes.
This smells like smoke screen.
Planting your own story in someone else’s hands to have them reveal exactly what you claim is the same game that Dick Cheney played with Judith Miller at the New York Times. We’ve seen this story before, and the ending doesn’t come out well for people like Nunes or Trump once all the facts are laid out.