Dem probing White House officials after Nunes visit

The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee is probing a pair of White House officials about coordination between their staff and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).

In his letter to the White House Counsel Donald McGahn and national security adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) asked whether the pair are “personally aware of the activities of your own staff” surrounding Nunes’ visit to the White House last week.

“Were either of you personally aware of the activities of your own staff in contacting Chairman Nunes, facilitating his entry onto the White House grounds, or providing him with access to classified information?” Cummings asked in the letter released Friday.

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Nunes was on White House grounds last week a day before he returned to brief President Trump about information he said he had learned about incidental surveillance of members of Trump’s transition team.

A New York Times report on Thursday claimed that two White House officials helped Nunes acquire the information, though the GOP chairman has declined to directly reveal the source of his information.

The newspaper identified the two officials as Michael Ellis, a national security attorney with the White House Counsel’s Office and Ezra Cohen-Watnick of the National Security Council.

Nunes told Bloomberg he used “the White House to help to confirm what I already knew from other sources.”

In his letter to the White House officials, Cummings asked if the White House staffers who reportedly helped Nunes will be disciplined.

“If these activities occurred without your knowledge, will any disciplinary measures be taken against these staff for this apparent breach?” he wrote.

“Was anyone else at the White House involved in these activities, and if so, who?” the lawmaker added.