House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said Sunday that Obama administration holdovers are illegally leaking information to the news media in an effort to damage President Trump.
The chairman’s assessment of the leaks bolstered Mr. Trump’s claim that he is being targeted by unlawful disclosures of classified information.
“We do have people in the last administration, people who have burrowed in, perhaps all throughout the government, who clearly are leaking to the press — and it is against the law,” the California Republican said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“Major laws have been broken. If you believe the Washington Post story that said there were nine people who said this, well these are nine people who broke the law,” he said.
The Washington Post story revealed that then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had misled White House officials about his conversations with the Russian ambassador during the transition, which resulted in Mr. Trump forcing him to resign.
Mr. Nunes said the problem was Obama-era holdovers, not a rift between Mr. Trump and the intelligence community, as some new organizations have claimed.
“Let’s get straight what we’re talking about with the intelligence agencies because I think there’s a lot of innuendo out there that the intelligence agencies have a problem with Donald Trump,” he said. “The rank-and-file people that are out doing jobs across the world in very difficult places, they don’t pay attention to what’s going on in Washington.”
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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