PhotoWASHINGTON — The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Devin Nunes of California, suggested on Wednesday that American intelligence agencies monitoring foreign officials may have “incidentally” picked up communications of Trump transition team members. “I think it’s startling information,” Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, told reporters. But the intelligence collection described by Mr. Nunes, known as “incidental collection,” indicates that the targets of American intelligence gathering were foreign officials, not specific members of the Trump transition or Mr. Trump himself. Advertisement Continue reading the main storyIt by no means indicates that Mr. Trump himself was under direct surveillance. “On numerous occasions the intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition,” Mr. Nunes said at a news conference on Capitol Hill.

Source: New York Times March 22, 2017 18:22 UTC