Trump, after House panel subpoenas, backs probing Obama administration

“If the reports are accurate, subpoenas related to the “unmasking” issue would have been sent by Chairman Nunes acting separately from the committee’s Russian Federation investigation”, the senior aide wrote in an email. According to committee rules, the chairman has to sign off on all subpoenas, unless that authority is delegated to someone else.

Democrats are blocking key witness interviews in the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russia’s election meddling, Politico reported.

Trump has been trying to manufacture a scandal surrounding the Obama administration’s “unmasking”, or revealing identities of United States of America citizens in intelligence reports, since early March, when he went on a tweetstorm recklessly accusing Obama of wiretapping him. A senior committee aide said Wednesday’s subpoenas were not part of the Russian Federation test.

On Thursday ThinkProgress reported “Devin Nunes and Trump are still working together in attempt to manufacture [an] “unmasking” scandal”.

At issue are classified intelligence reports based on the US intelligence community’s massive surveillance of foreign communications. The Republicans are eager to find out how names of Trump campaign officials became exposed in classified intelligence reports based on intelligence community intercepts, and how classified information about Trump was given to the media. Trump tweeted, referring to the Federal Bureau of Investigation director he abruptly fired.

Former FBI director James Comey is preparing to testify to Congress as early as next week about his private conversations with President Trump leading up to his abrupt firing, according to people familiar with the matter.

Bossie said Democrats keep making “bogus claims” about alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian Federation, while ignoring the “dangerous” issue of unmasking by political operatives in the Obama White House.

“I think the Republicans don’t want to slap their chairman in the face”.

The House intelligence committee said Wednesday it is issuing subpoenas for President Trump’s ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn and Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, as well as their businesses, as part of its investigation into Russian activities during last year’s election.

In the end, the source of the documents turned out to be the White House, and Nunes stepped away from the Russian Federation probe when the House Ethics Committee announced it was investigating Nunes himself for revealing classified information.

Republicans on the panel, meanwhile, have said that the subpoena power still resides with Nunes.

Schiff told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that the subpoenas went out without consultation with the minority.

Representative Jim Himes, a Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, replied to Trump’s tweet, calling it a “pathetic distraction”. Ahead of the presidential poll, thousands of hacked emails of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and the Democratic National Committee were leaked. He recused himself after odd feints that appeared to be nothing more than an effort, in conjunction with the White House, to confuse the probe by highlighting Trump’s dubious claim that he was wiretapped by the outgoing administration. “It looks like once again he is acting as a puppet for the administration”, Wertheimer said.

The speaker has authority over committee chairmen, and Ryan has backed Nunes previously.

Subscribe to the Defense One daily. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and Thomas Rooney, R-Fla., – though he did not recuse himself from the chairmanship.

Donald Trump backs probing the Obama administration.