White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Monday said he orchestrated phone calls between reporters and officials who could speak to the accuracy of reports that Trump campaign operatives had been talking to the Russians before the election.
“We did our job by making sure reporters who had questions were pointed to experts about whether the reports were accurate,” Spicer said during a White House briefing.
Earlier Monday, a report by Axios said he had enlisted CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Sen. Richard Burr, chair of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, to dispute a New York Times story from Feb. 15.
He said the Trump campaign’s connection to the Russians have been “investigated up and down” and “nothing’s come of it.”
Spicer even repeated Trump’s earlier comments that the president hadn’t “called Russia in 10 years.”
He wasn’t asked about Trump’s visit to Moscow in June 2013 for the Miss Universe Pageant, which he owned at the time.
Spicer also shot down calls from Democrats and some Republicans that a special prosecutor should be named to look into any contact between Trump campaign officials and Moscow.
“If there’s nothing to further investigate, what are you asking people to investigate?” he said.
Rep. Devin Nunes, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, warned on Monday against launching a McCarthy-style witch hunt based on a newspaper’s reporting.
“We can’t have McCarthyism back in this place,” said Nunes (R-Calif.) “We can’t have the government, the U.S. government or the Congress, legislative branch of government, chasing down American citizens, hauling them before the Congress as if they’re some secret Russian agent.”
The FBI reportedly had contacted the White House to say the Times story was inaccurate but would not publicly discount it.
Spicer said reporters then asked the White House to point them to others who “can substantiate” the FBI’s position.
It was “our job to share sources who had come to the same conclusion that story was not accurate,” he said.
On Sunday, a White House adviser said there’s no need yet for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from the FBI and Justice Department probes into the alleged talks.
“I don’t think we’re there yet,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on ABC’s “This Week.”
