BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): That was [Rep.] Devin Nunes [R-CA] after he spoke to the president. Eli Lake is a columnist with Bloomberg View all over this story. He predicted President Trump was on to something about these claims. Now what do you think, El?
ELI LAKE: Well, I still think that there is a very important story to be looked at which is was there intelligence reports that were tasked about Trump's transition or in Trump's campaign? Did they go to the White House, and was this part of the FBI's investigation or was this more widely distributed within the government? And all of that does -- is very troubling if this was in some way driven by the White House. But we don't know that yet. And I want to sort of be very cautious here because it is a very grave charge. But, this evidence that Nunes has come up with I think sort of is an important story that we need to sort of follow. What he has is effectively the documents. He says he has seen dozens of documents that are talking about communications of Trump, people during the transition period. Now you have to figure out was that tasked by senior members of the government? Was it tasked by somebodyin the White House? Was it shared by people in the White House? How widely distributed was that? And how many names and whose names were unmasked in this process? All that is very relevant.
[...]
KILMEADE: As Stephen Hayes said last night, there is paperwork on this, that doesn't have to be a mystery. Was it there a warrant to enable to do this? Were there two Americans speaking to each other? And they did say he doesn't think it was involvement with Russia. Now what about the protocol. The fact that he went to the CIA, the NSA, and to the White House, and not to [Rep] Adam Schiff [D-CA] the ranking member has rankled a lot on the left. Why didn't he go to Adam Schiff?
LAKE: Well, I mean I don't know exactly why Nunes did not go to Adam Schiff. They have worked together in a bipartisan way before you could argue. But, list this cuts both ways. There have been things that Schiff has said in the public about the status of the investigation you could argue that was getting ahead of where the process so and so forth and politicizing it. This whole thing has been a political football from the very beginning. It is obviously going to be political because the FBI is investigating the Trump campaign since July. I mean, he is president now. Of course it's going to be political. But that sort of gets away. When this is -- the House Intelligence community is supposed to do oversight of the intelligence community. So the committee is supposed to look at that this is totally within the remit of the committee.
