Pelosi on Nunes: ‘I’ve never seen behavior this bizarre’

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday called Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes’s (R-Calif.) behavior regarding the panel’s ongoing Russia investigation “bizarre.”

The comments follow revelations that Nunes met with White House officials the night before he made a bombshell announcement that the U.S. intelligence committee had inadvertently surveilled members of President Trump’s transition team. The visit to the White House grounds was reportedly to view evidence of the claim.

“Whether the president was aware or not is one thing. The Trump administration certainly was, and it is very bizarre,” Pelosi said on NBC’s “Today.”

“I have a long experience in the intelligence committee — served with Republican and Democratic chairmen. I’ve been the top Democrat there myself. I’ve never seen behavior this bizarre on the part of the chairman.”

{mosads}The episode of Nunes’s nighttime meeting with the officials has aroused suspicion among Democrats that he colluded with the White House in order to provide backup for Trump’s earlier claim that his presidential campaign was wiretapped by the Obama administration. 

Fueling the partisan animosity on the intelligence panel is Nunes’s decision to reveal the incidental surveillance publicly and then brief the president on the matter before discussing it with the other members of the committee. He has refused to unveil the sources of the information, even to the committee’s ranking member, Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

Pelosi also slammed Trump for not distancing himself from the episode, saying he is “wittingly or unwittingly” complicit in the matter.

“We have to really take some steps back and hope that in the administration there’s some adult some place that can say this is not fair to the American people,” she said.