Sen. McCain: Nunes should ‘absolutely’ reveal his sources

Sen. John McCain called on House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes to explain his decision to brief President Donald Trump on possible “unmasking” of Trump transition officials, suggesting that Nunes has undermined the credibility of the panel by not first communicating with fellow committee members.

“I think there needs to be a lot of explaining to do,” McCain said Tuesday on "CBS This Morning." “I’ve been around for quite a while, and I’ve never heard of any such thing. Obviously, on a committee like an intelligence committee, you’ve got to have bipartisanship; otherwise, the committee loses credibility. And there’s so much out there that needs to be explained by the chairman.”


Nunes, who served as a member of Trump's transition team, met with Trump last week to tell him that some members of the Trump transition team may have had their personal information improperly “unmasked,” or not redacted, as part of a standard surveillance of foreign officials’ communications. It was subsequently revealed that Nunes met with a source on White House grounds a day before briefing the press and then meeting with the president. Nunes has since refused to disclosed who he met with on White House grounds, and he has denied coordinating with White House officials.

When "CBS This Morning" anchor Norah O’Donnell asked McCain whether Nunes should reveal his source, McCain said he “absolutely” should.

“I can’t imagine why not,” McCain said.

Nunes’ decision to brief the president directly instead of first reporting the information to members of the Intelligence Committee has been fiercely criticized by Democrats, who said Nunes proved himself to be incapable of leading an independent investigation into allegations Russia meddled in the 2016 election and into possible ties between Trump's campaign and Russian officials. McCain has called for a select committee to investigate the matters, which he reiterated Tuesday.

“This is a very serious issue,” McCain added. “It all started with Russian interference, attempt to change the outcome of our election. It turned into a centipede like these things have a tendency of doing, and another shoe seems to drop every few days.”

“It’s an issue of utmost importance,” he added. “And something’s got to change; otherwise, the whole effort of the House of Representatives will lose credibility. … But I think that there is more information out there. There’s more ties to Russia. There is more engagement with false information. There is a lot more associated with Russian attempts to affect our election, but there are also a lot of other Russian activities going on.”