Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was able to view the documents that spurred an “alarmed” Rep. Devin Nunes to hold his bizarre press conference allegedly the names of some Trump transition team members had been improperly “unmasked” in intelligence reports. We know now Nunes made a clandestine late-night trip to the White House to view the materials, under the guise of needing a secure location to view the classified documents. He claimed nobody from the White House knew he was there, a claim later debunked by the news a pair of White House officials helped provide the documents to Nunes.
When Jake Tapper asked about the classified information he’d seen, Rep. Adam Schiff very important questions after his trip to the White House to see these documents.
But the most important thing people need to know about these documents is not classified and it's a couple of thing. First, the deputy assistant to the White House informed me when I went to see them that these are exactly the same materials that were shown to the chairman. Now this is a very interesting point. How does the white house know that these are the same materials that were shown to the chairman if the white house wasn't aware what the chairman was being shown? And the second point was also made to me, this is, I think, was also underscored by Sean Spicer and that is that it was told me by the deputy assistant the materials were produced during the ordinary course of business. The question for the White House and Mr. Spicer is the ordinary course of whose business? Because if these were produced either for or by the white house, then why all of the subterfuge? I think the answer may come from the president, himself, and you can say a lot of things about the president, but one thing you cannot say is he's not subtle. And I think his tweets tell the story and the story is look over there at leaks and look over there at anything the Obama administration we can claim did wrong on incidental collection or anything else. But whatever you do, under no circumstances look here at me or at Russia. I think that is really what is going on.
Video and full transcript below:
JAKE TAPPER: On Friday you travel to the white house to view these documents that Chairman Nunez, your Republican counterpart, has discussed, and Nunez says that they suggest the raising of issues, issues that he has about incidental surveillance of trump advisers and maybe the president, himself. President feels vindicated by what Nunez has said about these documents but Nunez says they do not show what the president claimed the wiretap of Trump or Trump Tower. Now you've seen these documents, can you understand why Chairman Nunez might have some issues with the surveillance that was going on?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF: Well, I can't go into the contents of the documents, Jake. I can't say I don't agree with the chairman's characterization which is where you don't share documents with one person or even two people. They need to be shared with both full committees. But the most important thing people need to know about these documents is not classified and it's a couple of thing. First, the deputy assistant to the white house informed me when I went to see them that these are exactly the same materials that were shown to the chairman. Now this is a very interesting point. How does the white house know that these are the same materials that were shown to the chairman if the white house wasn't aware what the chairman was being shown? And the second point was also made to me, this is, I think, was also underscored by Sean Spicer and that is that it was told me by the deputy assistant the materials were produced during the ordinary course of business. The question for the white house and Mr. Spicer is the ordinary course of whose business? Because if these were produced either for or by the White House, then why all of the subterfuge? I think the answer may come from the president, himself, and you can say a lot of things about the president, but one thing you cannot say is he's not subtle. And I think his tweets tell the story and the story is look over there at leaks and look over there at anything the Obama administration we can claim did wrong on incidental collection or anything else. But whatever you do, under no circumstances look here at me or at Russia. I think that is really what is going on.
JAKE TAPPER: Do you think that chairman Nunez was part of an attempt to provide some sort of cover for the president's claim about Obama wiretapping him at Trump Tower which, obviously, this does not prove, but cover for that? Or an attempt to distract, as you're suggesting?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF: It certainly is an attempt to distract and to hide the origin of the materials, to hide the white house and the question is why. I think the answer to the question is this effort to point the congress in other directions. Basically say don't look at me and don't look at Russia there is nothing to see here. I would tell people when whenever they see the president use the word fake it ought to set off alarm bells and I think that is really what has gone on here.
And right on cue this morning, Comrade Trump is tweeting about “fake news”:
Later in the same interview, Rep. Schiff said Donald Trump and White House officials seem to doing all they can to change conversation away from the investigation into whether members of Trump’s team (or even Trump himself) colluded with the Russians:
JAKE TAPPER: You signed a letter with chairman Nunez about three weeks ago asking the intelligence community about unmasking. That is when someone incidentally picked up and surveillance is named by official name and not just citizen a in intelligence reports. I guess the question that Nunez is asking or suggesting that we should be asking in the media who unmasked these trump advisers and is it possible that any of this unmasking was done for political reasons instead of for legitimate ones?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF: Well, first of all, I can't talk about as I mentioned the contents of any documents. So at this point, I can't say whether anything was masked or unmasked improperly. I can say this. In the ordinary course of what we do as an oversight committee, we look at exactly these issues. If the white house had any concern about whether minimization was used properly or how it was handled, that is material that should be given to us in the ordinary course of affairs. It doesn't need to be done, you know, by night through staff at the white house. The only reason to do that, again, if you want to hide where these materials are really coming from and who is behind it. And I think part of the reason why that was done is this effort to deflect attention from the Russia investigation, to raise other issues, to effectively create a cloud through which the public cannot see what is at
stake here and what is at stake here is a foreign intervention in our election. Very serious issue about whether U.S. Persons were involved and an investigation that is being conducted by the FBI into possible coordination with the trump campaign and I think among the most serious business the country has to do right now. The white house seems to be doing everything it can to point in other directions and say do not look here, there is nothing to see here.