House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Friday she has never seen behavior "this bizarre" on the part of a House Intelligence Committee chairman as she's witnessed from Rep. Devin Nunes, and she believes he should step down.
"I have a long history in the Intelligence Committee," Pelosi told NBC's "Today" show. "I have been the top Democrat there myself. I have never seen behavior this bizarre on the part of the chairman."
Nunes has been under fire after visiting the White House grounds last Monday and then on the day after revealing he'd learned there had been inadvertent surveillance on members of President Donald Trump's staff.
Pelosi said that "wittingly or unwittingly," Trump "has not dissociated himself" from the Nunes matter.
"So you take that, and then you have Gen. [Michael] Flynn asking for immunity, and we really have to take some steps back and hope that in the administration there's some adults some place who can say this is not fair to the American people," said Pelosi.
On Thursday, The New York Times reported that at least two White House officials had given Nunes access to the report about surveillance efforts.
Pelosi on Friday said she believes Nunes was "duped" by the White House into sharing the information, in order to back up Trump's claims about wiretapping at Trump Tower, but he should have known better.
Meanwhile, Pelosi said she wants to know what the Russians have "politically, personally, and professionally" on Trump.
"Why would the president of the United States just come in and try to flirt with the idea of lifting sanctions on Russia and their behavior in eastern Europe?" said Pelosi. "Why would the United States put Putin on the pedestal and diminish the greatness of America?"
She believes both the House and Senate committees can investigate the matter of Russia, but meanwhile, Nunes "should recuse himself because some of this investigation is about what happened" during the transition.
"I think he should not conduct the investigation because he was part of the transition, so for that and other reasons . . . why would the chairman of the committee go to the White House to get information that they could have conveyed to the president, bring it to the president and then take it to the press?" she said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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