Rep. Devin Nunes says he’s preparing to notify Attorney General William P. Barr this week about eight criminal referrals dealing with people allegedly misleading Congress and improperly leaking information.
Mr. Nunes said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that the referrals are classified or sensitive, and that five of them name a person and specific crimes, like lying to or misleading Congress or leaking classified information.
One of the other referrals involves alleged abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court process, which the FBI used to spy on Carter Page, the former Trump campaign figure.
“We believe there is a conspiracy to lie to the FISA court, mislead the FISA court by numerous individuals that all need to be investigated and looked at,” said Mr. Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.
Another conspiracy referral involves the manipulation of intelligence.
“As you know, we have had a lot of concerns with the way intelligence was used,” he said.
The other one is a “global leak referral,” he said.
“We think we have got a pretty good idea of who some of the sources are behind these leaks,” he said. “We don’t know if the Department of Justice has been looking at these. But there’s just been unprecedented things [that] have happened.”
He pointed out that conversations President Trump had with the prime minister of Australia and the Mexican president have leaked since Mr. Trump took office.
“We’re prepared to make those eight referrals this week, so the two on conspiracy, the one on global leaks, and then five that are more specific on lying, leaking and misleading Congress,” he said.
He also said he wants to see the information underlying special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“Every time we peel back the onion in this case, what do we find? We find out that, somehow, higher-level officials within the DOJ and FBI were misleading the American people and the courts,” he said.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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