Nunes: "Why would I not" remain intel chair?

[music playing]
JOHN KING: Thanks, Kate.
Welcome to "Inside Politics."
I'm John King.
Thanks for sharing your day with us.
President Trump takes aim today at a major Obama administration
climate change initiative, rolling back an executive order
on greenhouse gas emissions that the new president's EPA chief
says smothers job creation.
SCOTT PRUITT: For too long, over the last several years,
you had certain industries, certain sectors of our economy
that were within the crosshairs of EPA.
These industries, like the coal sector,
were under assault. And so that is not going to happen anymore.
We're going to have a very focused, pro-growth,
pro-environment message.
JOHN KING: Democrats disagree with that.
Also stoking the partisan divide,
the White House vows to choke off federal funds
to so-called sanctuary cities.
DONALD TRUMP: That was a big day you had yesterday,
too, on sanctuary cities.
That was a very, very important thing
you did and, frankly, a very popular
thing so congratulations.
JOHN KING: And new tensions today, crackling tensions,
over Russia's election meddling.
Senators want to question the president's son-in-law
about a post-election meeting with a Russian banker close
to Vladimir Putin.
And Democrats call for the leader of the House
investigation to step aside.
- Do you trust Nunes?
JACKIE SPEIER: I don't trust him.
I mean, I think he's a very nice man.
I think he is, frankly, over his head.
I think he used very poor judgment.
And I think he has tainted the committee.
I actually think that there is an effort under way
to shut this committee down.
JOHN KING: With us to share their reporting
and their insights--
Jonathan Martin of "The New York Times," Laura Meckler
of "The Wall Street Journal," Karen
Tumulty of "The Washington Post," and Olivier
Knox of "Yahoo News."
In a bit, an emotional meeting of House Republicans
this morning, and after it, upbeat talk
but no timetable of somehow revisiting Obamacare repeal.
But let's begin a very busy hour with a brief but important vote
of confidence in the man leading that house investigation
into Russian election meddling.
Top Democrats, as you just heard,
say Chairman Devin Nunes--
too cozy with President Trump.
The Democrats believe he should recuse himself from the House
Intelligence Committee review.
But Nunes says he is moving on with the investigation
and his boss, the House Speaker Paul Ryan, just moments ago,
brushed aside calls for the chairman to step aside.
- Should Devin Nunes recuse himself
from the Russia investigation?
And, two, do you know the source of his information?
PAUL RYAN: No and no.
JOHN KING: There you go-- no and no.
Ryan's backing brief there, but it's very important
because it isn't just Democrats raising questions about how
Nunes is conducting things.
The chairman kept even Republicans on the committee
in the dark as he went to the White House complex one day
last week to review classified intelligence reports
and then returned to the Oval Office the next day
to brief the president, again, without looping in anyone
else on the committee.
ERIC SWALWELL: This was done because the White
House wanted it to be done.
And this is what a cover up to a crime looks like.
We are watching it play out right now.
JOHN KING: Nunes says that's not true.
He also says he had no choice.
He says he was tipped off that members of the Trump transition
team were mentioned in intelligence reports being
shared across the executive branch late last year,
and he wanted to review those documents to see if privacy
guidelines were violated.
DEVIN NUNES: I've been working this
for a long time with many different sources
and needed a place that I could actually finally go because I
knew what I was looking for, and I could actually get
access to what I needed to see.
I'm quite sure that the people in the West Wing
had no idea that I was there.
Look, I go over there a lot.
I go over there often for meetings and briefings.
JOHN KING: The details of this can be confusing,
and we don't know a lot.
We don't know what, exactly, Chairman Nunes is talking about
in these documents where he said it's not related to Russia,
but Trump transition officials are
mentioned in these intelligence documents.
He thinks that's an outrage that the intelligence
agencies are too quick to put the names in these documents.
Let's, for a moment, though, talk about the trust factor.
The speaker answered quickly that Devin Nunes keeps his job.
Does that shut this down?
KAREN TUMULTY: Not even close.
LAURA MECKLER: No [chuckling].
I mean, no, obviously.
I mean, the Democrats smell blood in the water here.
I mean, I think that, actually, Speaker Ryan's
endorsement of him was important,
but not exactly enthusiastic.
JOHN KING: He didn't want to dwell on that.
LAURA MECKLER: He didn't dwell.
I think not even a syllable--
JOHN KING: He'd rather talk about health care,
wouldn't you say?
LAURA MECKLER: Right, so, I mean,
giving a two-letter answer is about as brief as it gets.
So I think that Democrats really think that they have something
here.
They think that he may--
first of all, I think the admin may genuinely be concerned
about the investigation, and they
think there may be something underlying
in terms of the Russian connections
with the Trump administration.
They want to get to that.
And they also are on the offense these days
with Republicans having one problem after the next.
And this is another example of them going from-- so I don't
think the fact that Speaker Ryan said no
is going to put an end to this.
OLIVIER KNOX: And they're getting a lot of support
from Russia hawks, including in the Senate
among Senate Republicans.
And that's another reason it's not going away.
This is not purely a partisan divide.
There is a very strong undercurrent among Russia
hawks, like John McCain that, in fact, we need
to get to the bottom of this.
And, in fact, John McCain said that Nunes
should disclose its source.
So no, it's absolutely not going away.
KAREN TUMULTY: And the more he talks about it,
the less sense it makes.
It's really beginning to sound like a giant game of Clue,
you know, Colonel Mustard in the library with a--
the idea that-- first of all, he'd
been working on this a long time and investigating it himself.
Then why didn't the other members of the committee
know about that?
The idea that a congressman just drops in all the time
at the White House is also something that
simply does not make sense.
Somebody has to keep records of his entry.
Somebody has to let him in.
Again, there's so many details of this.
And as he piles on more details, his story makes--
you know, it seems less and less coherent.
JOHN KING: Now he says this is a very sensitive
private information, that he'll be proven right in the end when
he can put all this out there.
We shall see.
But to your point about the White House,
you can't get on the grounds--
I mean, I guess you could jump the fence.
We've had a few of those recently.
[laughter] But, you know, you can't get on the grounds
without being cleared in, and he's not
just getting on the grounds.
He's going into one of the most sensitive
places on the executive office and getting on a computer.
KAREN TUMULTY: Can I borrow your skiff?
OLIVIER KNOX: --and getting on a computer there.
So wait--
JOHN KING: Somebody escorted him in there.
OLIVIER KNOX: So no one at the White House
knew that he was on the grounds in a sensitive facility looking
at a classified computer system?
I think, maybe, the White House has
other problems if that's true.
JOHN KING: And so here's the chairman this morning.
Here's the chairman this morning.
Again, he says he'll be proven right.
And, for now, the Republicans are standing by him.
But the spectacle of this is what
has a lot of people worried in addition
to the substance of this.
Here he is in the hall saying, why
should I leave the committee?
- Are you going to stay as chairman
and run this investigation?
DEVIN NUNES: Well, why would I not?
You guys need to go ask them why they're-- you know, why
these things are being said.
- So can this investigation continue as you as chairman?
DEVIN NUNES: Why would it not?
- Because there's--
DEVIN NUNES: Aren't I briefing you guys continuously
and keeping you up to speed?
- But they're saying that it cannot run as you
as chair would [inaudible].
DEVIN NUNES: You've got to go talk to them.
That sounds like their problem.
I don't have-- my colleagues are perfectly fine.
I mean, they know we're doing an investigation,
and that will continue.
JOHN KING: It's like a riddle.
He's answering questions with questions in the sense
of saying go ask the Democrats.
Go ask the Democrats.
But he says he's staying on. And to your point--
I want to play this out here-- to your point,
yes, it's Democrats in the House who are saying he has to go,
including the ranking member of the committee
and the Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.
A lot of Republicans in the House--
publicly, they support him.
Privately, they're mumbling about, what is he doing here?
Why didn't he clue us in on this?
We're not quite sure what his end game here
or what his information is.
On the Senate side, as Karen noted,
a lot of leading Republicans saying this looks bad.
SUSAN COLLINS: Following the House investigation
is like following a mystery novel.
You never know what's going to happen next.
I have a great deal of confidence
in that Senate investigation because it is bipartisan.
JOHN MCCAIN: Well, I think there needs to be
a lot of explaining to do.
I've been around for quite a while,
and I've never heard of any such thing.
Something's got to change.
Otherwise, the whole effort in the House of Representatives
will lose credibility.
I mean, that's just obvious.
JONATHAN MARTIN: It reminds me of the line
that they often throw around in the House,
where if you're a Republican in the House,
you say, you know, the Democrats are the opposition,
but the Senate is the enemy.
There's not a lot of love between chambers and especially
when it comes to to our sensitive national security
matters.
I mean, the Senate snobbery is barely, barely hidden there.
I mean, they feel like this is their purview
and that they're a more bipartisan body.
They are a more serious-minded body in some respects.
And the House escapades are proving
that in the last couple weeks.
JOHN KING: They have actually managed
to keep most of this behind closed
doors on the Senate side.
And the chairman and the ranking member--
JONATHAN MARTIN: Very few leaks--
JOHN KING: --largely get along. They've been getting along.
JONATHAN MARTIN: --from Burr and Warner, yeah.
JOHN KING: So it has been a more adult--
I get the rivalry between the two chambers.
But it has been a more adult on the Senate side so far.
We're talking about the access to the White House--
Devin Nunes showing up, going into the old Eisenhower
executive office building, getting into one of the most
secure rooms in the United States of America,
getting onto a computer.
And the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer says
we had no idea he was there.
SEAN SPICER: I don't know why he would brief the speaker
and then come down here to brief us on something that we
would have briefed him on.
It doesn't really seem to make a ton of sense.
So I'm not aware of it, but it doesn't
really pass the smell test.
JOHN KING: Correct, sir.
You are correct, sir.
It doesn't really pass the smell test.
LAURA MECKLER: And I think what underlies
all of this, of course, is the suspicion or the accusation
that he is too tight with the White House
to lead this investigation.
That's what the heart of this is.
So the question becomes, well, if he is getting
his information from the White House, which is supposedly
helping the White House--
oh, just coincidentally helping the White House?
The question becomes, can he actually investigate
the people that he's so close to that he
just drops by for reading room.
JOHN KING: He has to understand the gravity of his job
and the gravity of the moment and the politics of the moment.
Yes, even if he's doing the right thing,
Democrats are going to look at this politically.
So you have to take-- even if you have a trust issue--
you have to take the ranking Democrat with you.
If he had said, I got something.
I can't really tell you about it,
but you've got to come with me, then
we wouldn't be in this mess.
JONATHAN MARTIN: And there's a lot of mainstream folks
in the Republican Party who are asking us
what's going on here because they know the chairman.
He was a mainstream member, and he's really fallen for Trump
in a lot of ways here.
And it's puzzling to a lot of folks on the Hill.
Just real fast, John, taking a step back and looking
at this politically, every story about this investigation-- it
just creates a distraction for Trump.
It's a cloud over his head because Trump can't
help himself, and he responds.
JOHN KING: But an additional cloud
is that the chairman canceled the hearings this week,
including one today at which the former Deputy Attorney General
Sally Yates, a holdover for the Obama administration,
was fired when she wouldn't enforce the travel ban.
Now there's a dust up.
Your newspaper reporting that she was told she
couldn't testify, that the Trump administration told her
that her conversations with the White House on these issues
were covered by executive communication.
Therefore, you can't testify.
The White House is forcefully denying
that it had anything to do with blocking her from testifying.
But, again, it muddies the waters.
KAREN TUMULTY: There are letters.
There are black and white words on paper--
or however they receive them, maybe
electronically-- saying that they were trying
to assert this privilege.
And then the chairman conveniently,
coincidentally you know--
JOHN KING: --canceled the meeting so they didn't have to.
KAREN TUMULTY: So they don't have to push the issue
and go public with it.
OLIVIER KNOX: When the first of the odd Nunes behavior bubbled
up, a Bush national security career intel-- but served
under George W. Bush--
emailed me to say the headline here
is Nunes calls for independent investigation.
[laughter]
JOHN KING: But where does this go now?
Because this is embarrassing, can the Democrats now
say we have to have this hearing, where they
were going to bring James Clapper back in,
who had said he saw--
by the time he left he had seen no evidence of collusion.
They wanted him back publicly to see if he
would pull that back some.
They were going to bring in John Brennan, who was the CIA
director under Obama, who, you know he was going to get
asked how did it feel to have the president of United States
call you a Nazi?
And they were going to bring in Sally Yates, who,
of course, was there at this very
strange time, the transition.
LAURA MECKLER: Well, I may suspect Sally Yates testifies
before this is over, for sure.
KAREN TUMULTY: And if the House won't do it, then,
probably Senate would.
LAURA MECKLER: Yes, exactly.
I mean, but because you now have the White House, rather
than responding to this story by saying, exactly right,
she shouldn't be testifying, they're saying that's not true.
Well, then, is there no problem here or what?
I mean, I think that this is not going to just get shut down.
There's just too many avenues, too much going on,
too much public information.
This is all eventually going to come out.
KAREN TUMULTY: The other thing is--
JOHN KING: But how does the chairman make it right?
KAREN TUMULTY: How does the chairman make it right?
JOHN KING: Can he make it right?
KAREN TUMULTY: At this point, you know, at this point,
I think that it's the House Intelligence
Committee invests--
whatever the results of it are going to have
very little credibility.
And, in fact, this is putting more pressure on for this
to be just taken out of the purview of Congress
and given to some kind of independent body.
JOHN KING: The senators certainly don't want that.
You spent a lot of time doing reporting on
the ranking democratic member.
Does he believe this relationship can be repaired?
He's the one who came out yesterday and said,
you know, I've tried not to say this,
but I think the chairman has to go.
OLIVIER KNOX: Well, his solutions are all basically,
Nunes must recuse himself, must step aside,
can't leave the investigation.
We've got to have something more independent than that.
So I would say the relationship, I suppose,
over time can be repaired, but on this
particular mission it cannot.
JOHN KING: And it's a very important mission.
And if you're a Trump supporter out there,
it's important for your perspective Too.
And to the chairman's position that the intelligence agency is
being sloppy and unmasking people,
that's a legitimate issue too.
He just needed to handle it more professionally,
shall we say, intelligently, somebody might even say.
Next, come together, or else.
An emotional meeting for House Republicans and a potential
reset on repealing Obamacare?
Really?
That's next.

Nunes: "Why would I not" remain intel chair?

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