House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., felt it was his "duty and obligation" to brief President Donald Trump about information showing there was "incidental" surveillance of his transition team.
In a pretaped interview to air Thursday night on Fox News' "Hannity," the California lawmaker said it was "clear that I would be concerned if I was the president and that's why I wanted him to know," the Washington Examiner reported.
"I felt like I had a duty and obligation to tell him, because as you know he's taking a lot of heat in the news media and I think to some degree there are some things he should look at to see whether in fact he thinks the collection was proper or not," he said.
Nunes has come under fire from both Democrats and some Republicans for his White House briefing Wednesday — before he shared the intel with his own panel, which is investigating Russia's interference in the election.
Nunes, a member of Trump's transition team, even had to apologize to Democrats on the committee Thursday morning.
In his Fox News interview, Nunes reiterated his belief that the surveillance was "legal" but added that he questions the value of gathering such intelligence.
"I will say that the dissemination was pretty far and wide. And I will say, as I have said before, it appears to me that it was all legal, but the question is, should have it been done in the first place?" Nunes said, per The Hill.
"Did it meet foreign intelligence value? And then secondly, were any other Americans names unmasked? And I have information that says that there were," he added.
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