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White House invites lawmakers to see intelligence material

While some Republicans have been critical on Rep. Nunes, only one GOP member of the House has joined Democrats in calling for him to step aside.

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It is unclear if they are the same as those viewed by Nunes.

There, he meets with an unnamed source who gives him info that says, during the election, Trump and his aides were caught up in surveillance by the intelligence community.

The technical term is “incidental intelligence”, which is when spies pick up information about a subject who are not the focus of their investigation. Intelligence agencies routinely monitor the communications of foreign officials living in the US, though the identities of Americans swept up in that collection is to be protected.

Devin Nunes calls a press conference outside the Capitol.

“Putin’s goal is a weaker USA – weaker economically, weaker globally”, Warner said, “That should be of concern to all Americans”.

Kushner is the person closest to the president to be questioned in the investigations and the only one now serving in the White House, according to the Times.

“I can only conclude that it really doesn’t show what it’s being purported to show”, Schiff said, while acknowledging that he was just speculating since he hasn’t seen the documents.

Nearly immediately, Democrats and also some Republicans step up to call foul. “I look forward to it”, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said today.

Besides the two congressional committees, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is also investigating connections between the Trump campaign and Russian Federation. He and Nunes co-chair it.

Nunes insisted that a secure location at the White House complex was used because the information he went to view was already available to the executive branch and not to Congress.

“Ultimately the speaker and the chair decide who they want to run this investigation and they’ll have to articulate why and how they feel that can be done credibly”, Schiff said.

On the MSNBC program Morning Joe, Swalwell said that the work of the committee leading into last week had now been compromised. House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., defended canceling the public session until after Comey and Rogers had testified again, saying “there were more than 100 questions” the two couldn’t answer because of the open nature of the first hearing.

Comey’s second round of testimony touched off a partisan fight among House investigators into Russia’s meddling in the USA election, with Democrats saying they were angry Nunes canceled a public hearing with former intelligence officials, including former acting Attorney General Sally Yates.

“Generally, we understand that the Department takes the position that all information Ms. Yates received or actions she took in her capacity as Deputy Attorney General and Acting Attorney General are client confidences that she may not disclose absent written consent from the Department”, the letter says.

Mark Warner, D-Va., the committee’s vice chairman, said in a statement that “Mr. Kushner has volunteered to be interviewed as part of the committee’s investigation into the Russian activities surrounding the 2016 election”.

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On Mar. 27, Nunes cancelled all of the Committee meetings that had been scheduled for the week, according to The Independent.

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