Can someone explain the significance of the White House officials giving info to Nunes?

[phylny]

I understand that the White House seems to be "spying" on the FBI, but what kind of information be would stop or thwart the investigation? What was the purpose?

[DeminPennswoods]

1. Chris Hayes' theory

is that these guys were trying to "reverse engineer" intelligence info soley to support Trump's tweet/comments about being "wiretapped". Swalwell was on when he said that and agreed. I also think this is the most plausible explanation.

I think Maddow is way reaching to say the WH is "spying" on the FBI.

[phylny]

2. Thanks, and I agree about

Maddow. I just can't follow this easily.

[DeminPennswoods]

3. She's been doing great work, but

as soon as I heard her idea that the WH was spying on the FBI, I thought that was tinfoil hat territory.

[hedda_foil]

5. It's not her idea. It's investigative reporting from a highly responsive journalist.

https://tcf.org/content/commentary/trump-white-house-spying-fbi/

Barton Gellman is a senior fellow with the Century Foundation. Here's a bit of his piece.

Today’s news about Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and his two White House sources has serious implications for all three of them. The implications may be more serious for the ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia. This is far more than a story of intelligence manipulation for political gain. I need to describe some background first, so I will save the most consequential question for last.

Nunes, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, has stoutly maintained that “whistleblowers” informed him of electronic surveillance that swept in President Trump and his associates during the course of eavesdropping operations against foreign intelligence targets—and moreover that their names were not properly masked in the reports. Those facts alone, without further detail, are almost certainly classified as top secret, sensitive compartmented information. So naturally Nunes told reporters as soon as he heard.

This week it emerged that Nunes had met his whistleblowers on the grounds of the White House. That meant he left 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, caught a ride to the Capitol, held a news conference, and only then drove back to the White House to deliver the ostensibly urgent news to President Trump. Today we learned definitively that the whole performance was a charade.

The intelligence chairman’s sources, according to the New York Times, were a pair of Trump appointees: Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a detailee from the Defense Intelligence Agency who is senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, an assistant White House counsel for national security affairs. They are not just any presidential appointees. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster recently tried to fire Cohen-Watnick, a holdover selected by his predecessor, Michael Flynn, and Trump himself ordered McMaster to stand down. Ellis, the White House lawyer, used to work for Nunes on the intelligence committee.

If the Times report is accurate, there seem to be two significant breaches of the rules governing classified information. I stipulate that I am not an ideal messenger here, given my role in Ed Snowden’s NSA disclosures, and I also stipulate that news organizations are using classified leaks to track the Russia investigation. But journalists are not generally bound by secrecy regulations, and sometimes we cannot do our jobs without publishing classified facts. This case is different. Three named officials—two Trump appointees and arguably his leading defender on the Hill—appear to have engaged in precisely the behavior that the president describes as the true national security threat posed by the Russia debate. Secrecy regulations, including SF312, the Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement, do not permit Ellis and Cohen-Watnick to distribute sensitive compartmented information through a back channel to Nunes. This is true, and their conduct no less an offense, even though Nunes holds clearances sufficient to receive the information through proper channels. The offense, which in some cases can be prosecuted as a felony, would apply even if the White House officials showed Nunes only “tearsheet” summaries of the surveillance reports. Based on what Nunes has said in public, they appear to have showed him the more sensitive verbatim transcripts. Those are always classified as TS/SI (special intelligence) or TS/COMINT (communications intelligence), which means that they could reveal sources and methods if disclosed. That is the first apparent breach of secrecy rules. The second, of course, is the impromptu Nunes news conference. There is no unclassified way to speak in public about the identity of a target or an “incidentally collected” communicant in a surveillance operation.

There's lots more.so go read it!

[L. Coyote]

4. They are cyber-lynching Obama to get the evidence thrown out.

Seems they are part of Trump's Obama cyber-lynching plot.

The context is interesting. FIRST, the White House counsel orders document retention, on Tuesday if I recall right. It was the weekend when Trump tweeted Obama's cyber-lynching. What is going on? Apparently, Trump found out exactly what was happening when they were served a subpoena by the FISA court, they had been caught and a criminal investigation was happening. Guilty and caught means you have to try to throw out the evidence, that's their current strategy, politicize the criminal investigation, blame the black guy for playing politics.

#TrumpsTrolls are at work on Twitter pushing this plot, and they want to jail Obama. This is what to expect of the Republicans, very in character especially for trump. something even more insane than Benghazi. This is what Nunes and Trump are up to, trying to derail the FBI and FISA court criminal investigation.

Their strategy is very obvious, turn the #TrumpRussia investigation on its head by accusing Obama of political spying. It is the last refuge of the guilty and caught red-handed (pun intended), to get the evidence thrown out any way possible. Trump reacted when Trump learned of the gravity of the investigation, and that's the event that revealed the investigation to the degree that Comey could thereafter reveal it publically (since the targets were made aware anyway). After a few days Trump's defense strategy became apparent with his cyber-lynching of Obama. This reveals that "innocent" isn't going to work for him, he needs to prejudice the investigation to attempt to make it go away.

Michael Ellis was Special Counsel of the House Comm. just a few days back, then went to the WH. I fingered him as the guy working with Nunes a few days ago. He was Nunes' lawyer at the House Comm., in effect. It seems a HUUUUGE conflict of interest for a Chief Counsel lawyer to switch sides from investigator to target's lawyer, but par for corrupt Republicans on the defensive. Nunes may have gotten caught in a conspiracy up during the transition.

L. Coyote Tue Mar 28, 2017
1. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Special Counsel, Michael Ellis, now works for Trump

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028861822

The lawyer for the House committee investigating #TrumpRussia went to the White House to represent trump.

Wow, does that ever scream "We need a special prosecutor."

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet