(CNSNews.com) - White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer expressed frustration Thursday with the media’s “obsession with the process” surrounding House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) notifying the White House that the intelligence community “incidentally collected” information on Trump transition team members instead of questioning the “substance” of the revelation.
“There seems to be this obsession with the process: how did he get here, when did he go, what was the reaction? At some point, there should be a concern about the substance. That's a very serious revelation that he's made about what happened during the 2016 election with respect to our side and some of the things that happened,” Spicer said.
The press secretary called on the reporters to investigate what actually happened.
“And at some point, I would implore, urge, beg some of you to use some of your investigative skills to look into what actually did happen, why did it happen, what was going on back there, who knew what when,” he said.
During the briefing, Spicer fielded questions on whether he would “rule out that the White House or anyone in the Trump administration gave Chairman Nunes that information.”
“I don’t know what he actually briefed the president on, but I don’t know why he would come up to brief the president on something that we gave him,” Spicer responded, adding that “It doesn’t really seem to make a ton of sense. So I'm not aware of it, but it doesn’t really pass the smell test.”
Another reporter asked Spicer how Nunes ended up at the White House Wednesday.
“This morning he said he invited himself here, but that’s sort of an uncommon way to end up here. Can you take us through sort of the tick-tock of what happened?” the reporter asked.
“No. I don’t know how he got here. I assume in a car,” Spicer said, which prompted laughter among the reporters. “But I also don’t track him. I don’t keep his schedule either.”
“You know who he spoke with at the White House?” the reporter asked.
“No, I don’t. He literally gave a press conference as we were starting and saying I’m going to go down to the White House after we brief the press,” Spicer responded.
“Was this the first time that the White House was made aware of the surveillance that he brought to the president yesterday?” the reporter asked.
“I believe that the information that he shared with the president was new,” Spicer said.
NBC News correspondent Peter Alexander noted that Nunes has since apologized for briefing the president before speaking to members of his own committee.
“So I guess my question is, why was it appropriate? Why does the White House believe it was appropriate for Chairman Nunes to come and give this information to the president regarding an investigation about the president's own associates during the campaign?” Alexander asked.
“The reality is that he made a decision,” Spicer said. “He briefed the press first. No one had a problem, by the way, in the press corps getting briefed before anybody else. He went down and he briefed your colleagues before he briefed anybody else. I don’t hear too much crying about that.
“The reality is -- and then he made a statement and said, I'm going to come down to the White House and share this information with the president, as has just been noted. He didn’t give us a heads-up. He told us he made an announcement, he said I'm coming down to the White House, asked for time to share this with the president,” Spicer said.
“And I think part of the reason, to be clear and to your question, is specifically to say that there's a big difference between any discussion about what's going on in Russia and why this intelligence was picked up. His comments yesterday were very clear the intelligence and the information that he picked up had nothing to do with Russia,” he said.
“And I think he felt as though, according to his own words, that he had an obligation to make sure the president knew what he had discovered. That's it, plain and simple,” Spicer added.
“So to be clear, though, just because appearances matter on this, doesn’t the White House have a concern that it creates the appearance that there was potentially interference by the president that he was included in conversations about the investigation because it was completed?” Alexander asked.
“My concern, to be perfectly blunt with you, is that it's always -- you seem to have an obsession with the process and not the substance,” Spicer said.
“The president is the one who wants the conclusion. He asked for it,” Alexander said. “I'm asking, why didn’t he ask for details before it was completed?”
“Because as Chairman Nunes said -- and again, I'm just going to make it clear -- because he said that he wanted to make it very clear that the discussion and the revelations that he had were not -- did not regard anything to do with Russia, and he wanted the president to understand that, but there seems to be this obsession with the process: how did he get here, when did he go, what was the reaction. At some point, there should be a concern about the substance. That's a very serious revelation that he's made about what happened during the 2016 election with respect to our side and some of the things that happened.”
“And at some point, I would implore, urge, beg some of you to use some of your investigative skills to look into what actually did happen, why did it happen, what was going on back there, who knew what when,” Spicer added.
“But I think that there should be a similar concern, as opposed to figuring out whether he took a skateboard or a car here to exactly what happened and why it happened. And the reality is, is that whether he briefed us first or he briefed the Democratic members -- and that's up to him to decide -- the substance of what he shared should be troubling to everybody, and that's what I think is the important thing,” he said.
