Kevin Johnson

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee met secretly at the White House complex with the source of documents detailing the intelligence community's incidental collection of communications involving associates of President Trump, a top aide confirmed Monday.

The source of the intelligence reports cited by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has been a matter of increasing speculation, as the chairman declined to inform Democratic members of the existence of intelligence reports before briefing reporters and the president the day following his mysterious White House meeting.

Democrats, including the panel's ranking member, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., have asserted that Nunes sought to provide political cover to the president, who falsely claimed that the Obama administration wiretapped his New York offices in advance of the 2016 election.

"Chairman Nunes met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source,'' Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said. "The chairman is extremely concerned by the possible improper unmasking of names of U.S. citizens, and he began looking into this issue even before President Trump tweeted his assertion that Trump Tower had been wiretapped.''

Langer Monday declined to identify the source of the documents.

"To protect his source, the chairman has repeatedly said he will not reveal any information at all about the source,'' Langer said.

Nunes, in a late Monday appearance on CNN, defended the meeting, saying that neither Trump nor other top White House officials were likely aware that he was on the grounds to view the intelligence information.

Last week, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump did not give Nunes the information. And Monday, Spicer sought to distance the White House from any collaboration with Nunes, claiming that he was unaware of of the specific contents of the information Nunes saw or who had provided the information to the chairman.

"I can't say for 100 percent on what he briefed (the president) on,'' Spicer said Monday.

More questions

Monday's disclosure, though, only raised more questions about Nunes' actions last week and his committee's ability to conduct an impartial investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

Schiff and other Democrats late Monday called for Nunes to recuse himself from any further oversight of the House inquiry.

"After much consideration, and in light of the chairman’s admission that he met with his source of information at the White House, I believe that the chairman should recuse himself from any further involvement in the Russia investigation,'' Schiff said.

Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., a member of the House Intelligence Committee, described Nunes' actions "bizarre.''

“My fears have been validated,'' Speier said. "Through his bizarre and partisan actions over the last week, Chairman Nunes has demonstrated to the entire nation why he is unfit to lead our critical investigation into ties between President Trump’s administration and Moscow.''

Last week, FBI Director James Comey, testifying before Nunes' committee, delivered a double-barreled blow to the White House when he revealed for the first time publicly that federal investigators were in the midst of a wide-ranging counter-intelligence investigation into Russian interference and possible ties between Trump associates and the Russian government. At the same Comey also dismissed Trump's claims that the Obama administration had wiretapped Trump Tower prior to the November election.

Just two days after the hearing, Nunes made the surprising disclosure that an undisclosed number of Trump transition members — and possibly Trump himself — had been swept up in surveillance reports following the election in what the chairman described as incidental collection that appeared to be "legal'' though perhaps inappropriate.

Nunes suggested last week that the information came from a whistle-blower or other intelligence source with access to the information. He then went to the White House to brief Trump about the contents of the reports before informing his own colleagues on the committee.

The chairman privately apologized to the committee for his actions Thursday, but Monday's revelation that he secretly viewed the information at the White House before briefing Trump was prompting fresh calls for an independent commission to replace the House panel in its Russia probe.

Contributing: Gregory Korte

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