Liberal Forum

Devin Nunes Won't Say If He Worked With White House on Anti-FBI Memo

The Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee refused to answer when a colleague asked him if he had coordinated his incendiary surveillance memo with the White House, The Daily Beast has learned.

During Monday’s contentious closed-door committee meeting, Rep. Mike Quigley, a Democrat, asked Nunes point-blank if his staffers had been talking with the White House as they compiled a four-page memo alleging FBI and Justice Department abuses over surveillance of President Trump’s allies in the Russia probe.

According to sources familiar with the exchange, Nunes made a few comments that didn’t answer the question—initially saying that “as far as I know,” he did not collaborate with the White House on the memo—before finally responding that he wouldn’t answer it.

The transcript of the meeting, released the day after this story was initially published, shows Quigley asking “with the greatest respect” if the White House aided Nunes in any way, including consulting with him on the memo.

Nunes initially replied: “I would just answer, as far as I know, no.”

He continued, “And I would just also say that we are well aware the minority has not wanted to conduct this investigation by the public opposition to the subpoenas that we issued back in August that were clearly looking into matters of FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] abuse and other matters.”

Quigley asked Nunes if that meant “none of the staff members that worked for the majority had any consultation, communication at all with the White House?”

Nunes shut Quigley down: “The chair is not going to entertain–” after which Quigley yielded.