White House invites House Intel Dem to view documents

The White House has invited the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee to view materials related to incidental collection after his Republican counterpart visited the White House last week, he told reporters.

But it’s unclear if the documents Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has been invited to view are the same mystery documents seen by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House panel, Schiff said.

Schiff said he has accepted the invitation from the White House Counsel, but said the invitation “raises far more questions than any it answers.” He added that he has pushed for the entire committee to have access to the materials.

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White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that the White House had invited leaders of both the House and Senate intelligence committees to review materials related to their investigations into Russian interference in the election. 

But Schiff did not appear mollified by the White House’s invitation, commenting hours after a New York Times report identified two National Security Council (NSC) staff members who it said helped Nunes acquire the information.

Schiff said if that was the case — and these are the same documents provided to Nunes — it is “bewildering” that the information wasn’t simply taken directly to the president.

“Why all the cloak and dagger stuff?” he said. 

“They don’t need our chairman to deliver something to the president they can deliver themselves,” Schiff said. “The White House needs to answer is this instead a case in which to effectively launder information through our committee to avoid [revealing] the true source of the information.”

Nunes earlier this month said he had been shown information indicating that the U.S. intelligence community had incidentally collected information on members of President Trump’s transition team and subsequently unmasked that information, perhaps inappropriately.

The GOP chairman was shown the information while on White House grounds last week. The next day, he briefed Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), held a press conference announcing his discovery, and then trekked back to the White House to brief Trump on the information.

Democrats have accused the chairman of acting as an agent of the White House, perhaps to provide substantiation for Trump’s claim that the Obama administration “wiretapped” him during the campaign — a charge Nunes has vehemently denied. 

The incident — along with the cancelation of a public hearing involving former Obama administration officials — has thrown a wrench into the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the election. 

Schiff and other Democrats have called for Nunes to recuse himself from the investigation and work on the committee was effectively halted this week. 

Earlier in the day, Schiff told reporters that Democrats had determined to proceed with the probe, following a week of speculation that the minority might walk away in protest. 

In one sign of slightly thawed relations, Schiff said that Democrats have signed on to a letter from Republicans inviting FBI Director James Comey to return to testify before the committee behind closed doors. 

Democrats had originally resisted signing the invitation because it conflicted with the originally-scheduled public hearing involving former acting Attorney General Sally Yates. 

He said Republicans have not yet signed on to a request from Democrats to reschedule that hearing — but that he has accepted the chairman’s claim that the only obstacle is a desire to hold the closed session with Comey first. 

But Schiff’s manner Thursday afternoon remained grave.

He vowed that the uproar over the chairman’s actions would not “distract” from the core mission of the committee’s investigation. 

“This issue is not going to distract us from doing our Russia investigation,” he said.

Schiff gave no timeline for when he will travel to the White House to view the documents.

Updated: 4:53 p.m.