White House aides shared intelligence files with Nuneshttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/03/30/white-house-aides-reportedly-shared-intelligence-files-with-nunes.htmlTwo White House aides have emerged as sources for a top House Republican who said earlier this month that Trump transition team members were incidentally caught up in surveillance conducted on foreign targets after the presidential election.
It had been unclear who showed embattled House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes the documents, though it previously emerged the California Republican viewed the files on White House grounds.
But on Thursday, “several” current officials identified the sources to The New York Times as Ezra Cohen-Warnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, an attorney at the White House Counsel’s Office who previously worked for the House Intelligence Committee.
Fox News has confirmed that the two staffers aided Nunes in reviewing intelligence on White House grounds March 21.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Thursday wouldn't confirm or refute the report; however, he did announce the White House had just hours before submitted a letter to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, inviting them to the White House to "see the information" that had recently "come to light."
"We are willing to provide them the materials that we have come across," Spicer said.
Asked if President Trump specifically directed anyone to look into allegations he had made about the Obama administration spying on him, Spicer said he wasn't "aware of anything directly."
The Times report appears to cast the actions of the White House aides as being undertaken on their own volition.
Earlier this month, after Trump tweeted that former President Barack Obama had “wiretapped” him, Ellis began viewing classified reports that showed “intercepted communications of foreign officials,” The Times reported. The reports mainly focused on foreign officials “talking about how they were trying to develop contacts within Mr. Trump’s family and inner circle,” according to The Times.
A spokesperson for Nunes declined to comment on the Times report.