Washington Post: Investigate Nunes for leaks

The Washington Post is calling for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) to be investigated for publicly leaking sensitive information.

Nunes has faced intense criticism for announcing Wednesday the U.S. intelligence community incidentally collected information on members of President Trump’s transition team and briefing the White House on it before talking to members of the committee.

“We’ve said before that it was doubtful that an investigation headed by Mr. Nunes into Russia’s interference in the election could be adequate or credible. The chairman’s contradictory and clownish grandstanding makes that a certainty,” the Post’s editorial board wrote Friday.

{mosads}“His committee’s investigation should be halted immediately — and Mr. Nunes deserves to be subject to the same leaking probe he demanded for the previous disclosures.”

The newspaper said Nunes’s decision to openly discuss the information has compromised Congress’s ability to probe Russian meddling in last year’s election.

“Mr. Nunes’s antics serve to underline the urgency of a serious, nonpartisan and uncompromising investigation into Russian interference in the election and any contacts between Moscow’s agents and the Trump campaign.”

Nunes on Wednesday called a press conference to reveal that the U.S. intelligence community incidentally collected information on members of Trump’s transition team.

“Details about U.S. persons involved in the incoming administration with little or no apparent foreign intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reports,” he told reporters.

“I want to be clear — none of this surveillance was related to Russia or the investigation of Russian activities or of the Trump team.”

Trump has insisted, without evidence, that former President Obama “wiretapped” him during his campaign.

Nunes on Thursday admitted he regrets informing Trump about surveillance of his transition team before first updating the rest of the Intelligence Committee.

“At the end of the day, sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you don’t,” he told reporters, adding he could not show his committee information given to him by a source.