WASHINGTON _ The Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat called on Chairman Devin Nunes on Monday to step aside from the panel's Russia probe and matters related to Donald Trump's presidential transition.
Democrat Adam Schiff's statement came after Nunes said he met with a person on the White House grounds to view secret intelligence documents that he used to bolster Trump's claims of surveillance by President Barack Obama. Calls grew on Capitol Hill for an expanded probe into Russian meddling in the presidential race.
Schiff said he based his move on Nunes' admission that he met with his source at the White House, and the fact that Nunes served on Trump's transition team.
"I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the president's campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman," Schiff said.
Nunes, a California Republican, declined to identify his source, but said it was an intelligence official, not a White House staffer.
Nunes told Bloomberg View's Eli Lake that the meeting occurred on the White House grounds Tuesday because it was the most convenient secure location with a computer connected to the system that included the reports, which are only distributed within the executive branch.
"We don't have networked access to these kinds of reports in Congress," said Nunes. The White House said it learned from public reports that Nunes confirmed he was on White House grounds last Tuesday.
The way Nunes got the information and who he got it from has emerged as a new twist in the attempt by the White House to bolster a Trump tweet accusing his predecessor of spying on him. The day after Nunes reviewed the intelligence on the grounds of the executive mansion _ according to his latest account _ he held a news conference at the Capitol, then rushed to the White House to brief Trump in person.
Nunes repeatedly deflected questions last week about whether the White House provided the information to him, and that has threatened to derail the House Intelligence Committee investigation.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi separately called on House Speaker Paul Ryan to replace Nunes as head of the intelligence panel.
"This is a matter of such gravity we need to get it right," Schumer of New York said Monday on the Senate floor. "There should be no doubt about the integrity and impartiality of the investigation, either in the executive branch where the FBI and Department of Justice are looking into it, or the Congress."
"The Chair of the House Intelligence has a serious responsibility to the Congress and to the country," Pelosi said in a statement Monday. "Chairman Nunes' discredited behavior has tarnished that office."
Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said, "Speaker Ryan has full confidence that Chairman Nunes is conducting a thorough, fair and credible investigation."
On Monday, Nunes said he has been hearing for several weeks about the existence of intelligence reports that contained details on Trump's transition team.
"The reports included details about the Trump transition, meetings of Trump and senior advisers; they were distributed throughout the intelligence community and to the White House," Nunes said in the interview. "In some cases, there was additional unmasking of Trump transition team officials."
A spokesman for Nunes also said FBI Director James Comey and national security adviser Mike Rogers won't appear before the committee in a closed-door meeting Tuesday. Nunes had scrapped a plan for a public hearing on Tuesday with several former Obama administration officials, saying the panel wanted to hear more from Comey and Rogers first.
But it's unclear when that meeting will occur.
Several congressional committees, as well as the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, are investigating Russian meddling in the U.S. election, including the hacking and release of Democratic emails. For the House Intelligence Committee, that probe has expanded into the explosive question of whether anyone close to Trump abetted the effort. Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman, and veteran Republican operative Roger Stone offered Friday to testify before Nunes's committee.
Questions about how Nunes received intelligence intercepts _ that he described as routine, legal surveillance that picked up conversations with Trump aides during the transition _ have raised new doubts about his panel's ability to conduct a nonpartisan inquiry.
A Democrat on the panel said Monday that the disclosure that Nunes viewed the new documents on White House grounds _ with no other panel members present _ means that the existing inquiries aren't sufficient.
"The @realDonaldTrump @WhiteHouse is obstructing Congress's #RussianHacking investigation. Ind. Commission is only path to find the truth," said Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California who sits on the Intelligence Committee.
Nunes has declined to identify the source for the information and hasn't shared it yet with his Democratic colleagues on the panel.
On Sunday, Schiff blasted Nunes for briefing Trump directly on the information before briefing fellow committee members.
"My complaint with the chairman is taking whatever information he has to the White House, when the White House is the subject in a way of the investigation," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday at a news conference that the administration had no reason to take issue with Nunes' explanation of the visit and declined to "get in the middle" of the committee investigation. He added that there's a difference between a leak and a review of the situation.
"Someone who is cleared to share classified information with someone else cleared is not a leak," Spicer said.
