Sean Spicer revealed during Wednesday’s press briefing that they were caught off guard by Congressman Devin Nunes’ Wednesday press conference, in which he stated President Trump’s personal communications may actually have been collected by the Obama administration during the 2016 election.
Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters that significant development in the committee’s investigation revealed “that on numerous occasions the intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.” (RELATED: House Intel Chair — Trump’s Personal Communications May Have Been Captured In Sweep)
Sean Spicer (Getty Images)
Reporters asked Spicer if the White House was “concerned” about the optics of Nunes’ meeting with the president on the findings, a meeting which might be construed as White House interference in an ongoing investigation.
Spicer responded in the negative — clarifying that it was Nunes not President Trump who requested the meeting — before blasting a double standard in the media.
WATCH:
“Let me get this straight,” Spicer continued. “Number one, two weeks ago, we said this is the appropriate venue. Number two, you have asked over and over again why aren’t we meeting with certain individuals.”
“One of the chairman wants to share his findings on what he knows. I think that is exactly how we talked about this working but would leave it to Congressman Nunes to come up and to brief.”
“I don’t know what his plan is,” the White House press secretary conceded. “He briefed the media before he briefed us. He went down and talked about what he found.”
Sean Spicer (Getty Images)
“It was interesting, I didn’t see any complaints from you guys when he went down and held a press conference for the umpteenth talking about his findings. There’s no complaints from the media when he shares what he’s found with you guys, but when he wants to come up here and tell us this is where the investigation stands, this is what I’ve learned, there seems to be a little bit of an interesting double standard.”
“You’re asking me questions — he has not briefed us, he has not briefed the president,” Spicer clarified. “He actually went down and spoke to media before he shared this with us.”
It should be noted that President Trump told Tucker Carlson last Wednesday there will be “some interesting things [regarding his surveillance claims] going to the forefront over the next few weeks.” (RELATED: Trump Sits Down With Tucker Carlson)