Nunes Apologizes to Intel Committee for Briefing Trump on Surveillance

US House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes apologized to members of the committee for briefing President Donald Trump on new information regauding surveillance before discussing it with ranking member Adam Schiff, a committee aide said on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — On Wednesday, Nunes confirmed in a press conference that the US Intelligence Community collected information on Trump’s transition team. Moreover, Nunes said the collection was unrelated to allegations of Russian collusion and widely disseminated within the US government.

Nunes apologized "for not sharing information about the documents he saw with the minority before going public," the aide told Politico. "He [Nunes] pledged to work with them on the issue."

Earlier in the day, Nunes explained why he decided to brief the press and US President Donald Trump on new intelligence information before telling the ranking Democrat on the committee.

Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff, a Democrat representing California’s 28th district, said later on Wednesday that Nunes did not follow proper protocol of the investigation, and called his briefing of the US president a profound irregularity.

On March 4, Trump took to Twitter to accuse Obama of having his Trump Tower headquarters' "wires tapped" prior to the 2016 presidential election, describing this as the former administration's "new low. The president went on to compare the alleged surveillance to McCarthyism and the Watergate scandal. The claims have been rejected by Obama's representative.

The US House and Senate Intelligence Committees have found no credible evidence to support Trump's claims.