A modified “Gang of Eight,” four Republicans and four Democrats, said little as they left a classified briefing in the basement of the U.S. Capitol. Top officials from the Justice Department, the director of national intelligence, the White House chief of staff and a White House lawyer were entirely tight-lipped.
The ranking member on the House intelligence committee Rep. Adam Schiff read a brief joint statement drafted by the Democrats who attended the briefing. “Nothing we heard today has changed our view that there is no evidence to support any allegation that the FBI or any intelligence agency placed a ‘spy’ in the Trump Campaign,” he told reporters.
The Republicans have not yet made a statement.
This was the second briefing of the day on what President Trump has termed “Spygate,” a scandal surrounding the FBI’s alleged use of a paid informant to monitor at least three Trump campaign associates for political purposes. The first briefing took place around noon at the Justice Department.
Republican chairmen of the House intelligence committee and House oversight committee Devin Nunes of California and Trey Gowdy of South Carolina led the charge to access classified documents related to the informant. The request emerged as part of an aggressive House investigation into evidence of FBI surveillance against the Trump campaign and possible political motives underlying the appointment of a special counsel.
Democrats countered that the information being sought by Trump’s congressional allies would be used to undermine Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Trump campaign and Russia.
“It appears that it is a meeting that could be sharing information that … could possibly be helpful to the president’s defense,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters Thursday.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who sits on both the intelligence and judiciary committees also warned the information provided in the classified session could be passed on to President Trump to aid in his or his colleagues’ legal defense strategy against Mueller.
“For a possible defendant to conduct discovery of the prosecution’s case through compelling meetings and disclosure of classified information, that’s not only a bad precedent, it’s a disservice to our justice system,” he told Circa.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill, was more explicit, saying Nunes will act as “a conduit and a pipeline” to provide information to President Trump, like he did last year.
“What I suspect is that any information that is beneficial to the president that can be gleaned from the information provided will be immediately given to the president,” Gutierrez said.
Last March, Nunes was forced to recuse himself from leading the House intelligence investigation into Trump and Russia after reports suggested he was working too closely with the White House.
While a number of Democrats suspected their congressional colleagues may serve as a back-channel to Trump regarding Thursday’s briefings, others were wary of the White House staff who reportedly attended both briefings.
White House chief of staff John Kelly and President Trump’s attorney Emmett Flood were seen in the Capitol on their way to the briefing. Kelly was reportedly at the Department of Justice briefing.
On the Senate floor, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer argued it was “wholly inappropriate” for Kelly to attend any briefing, implying it was an attempt by the White House “to interfere in an ongoing Department of Justice investigation.”
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., vice chairman of the intelligence committee tweeted that “the President’s Chief of Staff and his attorney in an ongoing criminal investigation into the President’s campaign have no business showing up to a classified intelligence briefing.”
Earlier this week, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters no one from the White House would attend the briefings.
For Nunes and Gowdy, Thursday’s briefing was the result of months of pressure on the Department of Justice to turn over documents related to an FBI informant who met with at least three Trump campaign officials in the final months before the 2016 election.
Nunes recently explained his aggressive pursuit of the documents, telling Sinclair Broadcast Group it was in the interest of the public to know if the former administration used the U.S. intelligence services “to go after and target” a political campaign.
“We’re there so we can take this classified information and evaluate it and provide oversight to ensure they’re actually following the proper rules and regulations and the expectations of the American people,” Nunes said.
Both Nunes and Gowdy are also pursuing an investigation of alleged abuses of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) monitoring against former Trump campaign associate, Carter Page.
Earlier this month, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein agreed to give Nunes and Gowdy a “viewing” of certain documents after a months-long pressure campaign. In the weeks leading up to Thursday’s briefing, Nunes threatened top Justice Department officials with contempt of Congress and began drafting articles of impeachment for Rosenstein.
The dam apparently broke after President Trump weighed in on the matter, insisting members of Congress get access to the documents and last week demanded the Justice Department look into politically motivated surveillance of his campaign by the FBI or Justice Department.
Following the president’s tweet, the Department of Justice announced its internal watchdog would be conducting the investigation into “any impropriety or political motivation” in the FBI’s approach to the Trump campaign and Russian collusion in 2016.
Rosenstein issued a statement announcing the probe, saying, “If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action.”
Though the investigation is hardly underway, President Trump publicly concluded his predecessor, Barack Obama ordered surveillance against his campaign, charging the behavior amounts to “one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history.”
Since last year, President Trump has claimed the previous administration spied on his campaign. Those suspicions were given further credence last week when multiple press reports revealed the FBI had “a human source” reaching out to at least three members of the Trump campaign.
The source was apparently associated with the counterintelligence investigation the FBI initiated in the summer of 2016 amid suspicions the Russian government was trying to interfere in the presidential election.
Further reports revealed the informant’s identity, Stefan Halper, a long-time intelligence source and retired professor. Halper was reportedly paid more than $1 million since 2012 for research conducted on behalf of the U.S. government.
These reports fueled President Trump’s suspicions that the government paid someone to spy on him and his campaign.
Some Democrats denounced the president’s claims as “fantasy” or “paranoia.” Sen. Schumer argued the president was “inventing enemies out of shadows.”
However, many Republicans have said there are sufficient grounds to investigate the president’s claims.
Rep. Ron Desantis, R-Fla., who recently called for a second special counsel to investigate possible political bias in the FBI’s surveillance of the Trump campaign, argued the information provided to a select group in Congress should eventually be made public.
“I want everyone to be able to have access to this stuff,” he told Circa. “We want the American people to know the truth about who was used to get human intelligence. Was it at the FBI’s direction? Were they paid and what was the purpose? And let’s just get it out there.”
Asked if he was concerned about revealing sources and methods, he said the information can be shared in a way that respects sensitive material but also provides transparency.
