Key Republican says no evidence of Trump campaign-Russia contacts

When Raju suggested that the White House was urging Nunes to “knock down these stories” Nunes replied, “No, that absolutely didn’t happen”. “Not only on the three Americans who are named in that story – but also any other American that had any contacts with Russians”, he said.

USA intelligence agencies concluded previous year that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had authorized an operation to damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign and tilt the 2016 election in Trump’s favor.

Democrats have pressed for congressional investigations following a series of media reports linking the campaign with Russian Federation. And, he said that there is bipartisan agreement that the intelligence committee does need more funding. Nunes was among the lawmakers Spicer connected to reporters, along with the Senate intelligence chairman, Richard Burr (R-N.C.).

But the cooperative spirit of the Intelligence Committee is being put to the test as it faces pressure to review Russian efforts to influence the USA presidential election, including any links between Trump campaign officials and Moscow.

But even though he still has not seen evidence of connections, Nunes said nothing yet has been eliminated.

(Nunes) “That’s what I’m concerned about here, that we don’t go on some witch hunt against American citizens just because they appear in a press story somewhere”. Law enforcement and intelligence officials tell NBC News that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is examining evidence of contacts over the summer between Trump associates and Russians, some with links to the Kremlin.

The California Republican also defended speaking to a reporter to push back against news reports about connections between Russian Federation and Trump officials. In order for us to make a determination, we’re going to need the Federal Bureau of Investigation to come in and testify about what they’ve looked at, what they haven’t; what they found, what they didn’t; what leads are yet to be investigated.

Nunes and Schiff also differed sharply on the importance of investigating those leaks.

After National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was forced to resign from the White House, allegations surrounding President Donald Trump’s ties to Russian Federation have come under increasing scrutiny.

Flynn was forced to resign as national security adviser earlier this month after he misled Vice President Mike Pence about the phone calls.

Flynn was just doing what he was supposed to do as a part of Trump’s incoming administration, Nunes argued.

“We’re very interested in figuring out who those people were because they have questions to answers as to what laws did they use to decide to unmask Gen. Flynn”, Nunes said. In the case of Nunes, Spicer supplied him with reporters’ phone numbers after Nunes “offered to make the calls himself”. But you can help stop GOP reps from trying to bury this in the sand in the same way people stepped up and called their reps about Betsy DeVos – and the time to act is right now. Then, in the ultimate of defensive moves, Nunes tried to turn the question around on the reporter.

“It’s ridiculous”, he said. “And it leaves them, you know, struggling to understand”.