That investigation began last July and officials said Wednesday it was separate from the surveillance Nunes disclosed. Former congressional aides disputed Nunes’ claim that intelligence officials had acted improperly in conducting the surveillance or circulating the reports. The FBI is required to get a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a federal law governing eavesdropping, in order to intercept telephone conversations, emails, texts and other types of communications involving foreign intelligence operatives and Americans suspected of espionage. It is also possible that such reports were written to leave little doubt that the foreign officials’ conversations had been with a Trump transition official, they said. In some cases, intelligence officials may have decided to unmask transition officials involved in the conversation to make the significance of the intelligence report clear.

Source: Los Angeles Times March 22, 2017 23:22 UTC