The Senate Intelligence Committee has found that a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee leaked to Fox News text messages sent by Sen. Mark Warner Mark Robert WarnerGOP senators object to White House delaying home-state projects for border wall Report highlights Instagram, deepfake videos as key disinformation threats in 2020 elections GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson to resign at end of year MORE (D-Va.), according to a new report.

Two officials told The New York Times that members of the Senate committee were briefed on the conclusions made by the committee leaders, Sen. Richard Burr Richard Mauze BurrTrump to hold campaign rally in North Carolina day before special House election Hoekstra emerges as favorite for top intelligence post Trump casts uncertainty over top intelligence role MORE (R-N.C.) and Warner.

The Times reports the two men demanded a meeting with Speaker Paul Ryan Paul Davis RyanScott Walker's son considers congressional run Bloomberg revises story on Trump Labor pick who was reinstated Labor reinstates official accused of anti-Semitic posts by Bloomberg story: report MORE (R-Wis.) to address the leak and inform him of their findings. During the meeting, they also raised concerns about the House committee and its leader, Rep. Devin Nunes Devin Gerald NunesNunes campaign drops lawsuit against constituents who accused him of being a 'fake farmer' Judge asks Twitter for information on Devin Nunes parody accounts The Hill's Campaign Report: Democratic field begins to shrink ahead of critical stretch MORE (R-Calif.), according to the newspaper.

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Last month, Fox News published a series of texts between Warner and lobbyist Adam Waldman, whose firm reportedly has ties to former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonWarren endorses Texas Democrat Cuellar's primary challenger Ten notable Democrats who do not favor impeachment Krystal Ball: Warren's Hillary connections revealed?; Saagar Enjeti: End the wars MORE.

Warner was seeking to establish contact with Christopher Steele, the author of the controversial dossier linking President Trump Donald John TrumpTrump awards Medal of Valor, civilian honors to responders in Dayton and El Paso shootings Texas Democrats unveil 'path to victory' plan for 2020 The Hill's 12:30 Report: Congress returns with gun violence, funding atop agenda MORE to Russia, as part of the Senate panel's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The Virginia Democrat exchanged text messages with Waldman, who did work as a lobbyist for a Russian oligarch, about making contact with Steele, according to the Fox News report.

At the time, Fox News reported the texts were obtained from “a Republican source.”

According to the Times, Waldman originally submitted the texts to the Senate committee as part of its investigation. A staffer for Nunes requested in January that copies of the messages also be shared with the House committee.

The documents published by Fox News included a label reading “CONFIDENTIAL: Produced to USSSCI on a Confidential Basis,” which refers to the Senate Intelligence Committee, otherwise known as the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

However, a source told the Times that the document contains other markings showing it came from the House committee. According to the newspaper, a copy of the messages provided to the Senate committee contained page numbers, while the copy given to the House committee did not contain page numbers.

Burr later denied the Times report, telling a CNN reporter that his panel had not concluded that House Republicans were behind the leak. He also denied raising concerns about Nunes during his meeting with Ryan.

Burr flatly denies report that his panel has concluded that Nunes/House Rs behind leak of Warner texts. Says: “No,” when asked if SSCI concluded that. He also denied they raised concerns about Nunes to Ryan. “We met with Speaker Ryan to update on our investigation. That was it." — Manu Raju (@mkraju) March 1, 2018

A lawyer for Waldman also came to the conclusion that the House committee leaked the messages and complained to Nunes about the leak, according to the Times.

A spokesman for Nunes did not deny that the committee had leaked the messages in a statement to the Times.

“The New York Times, a prominent purveyor of leaks, is highlighting anonymous sources leaking information that accuses Republicans of leaking information,” spokesman Jack Langer told the Times. “I’m not sure if this coverage could possibly get more absurd.”

Trump at the time cited the Fox News report in a Twitter attack on Warner, saying it was “all tied into Crooked Hillary.”

Sen. Marco Rubio Marco Antonio RubioTrump suggests activist investor intervene at CNN, calls network 'bad for the USA' To thwart a possible recession, Trump should work on policies that support workers The Hill's Morning Report — The wall problem confronting Dems and the latest on Dorian MORE (R-Fla.), another member of the Senate committee, dismissed the Fox report at the time, saying Warner had disclosed his contacts to the committee and that they had “zero impact” on its ongoing investigation.

Updated: 12:51 p.m.</s>The incomparable Devin Nunes at the Capitol on Tuesday. Mark Wilson/Getty Imges

Republican California Rep. Devin Nunes is in the soup again! This time, it’s a New York Times report which says that the Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that the House Intelligence Committee, of which Nunes is chair, leaked an arcane bit of Russia-investigation evidence to Fox News that, when taken out of context, was briefly embarrassing to Democratic Virginia Sen. Mark Warner. The Times says that even the Republican chair of Senate Intel, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, was peeved:

Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, the committee’s Republican chairman, and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat, were so perturbed by the leak that they demanded a rare meeting with Speaker Paul D. Ryan last month to inform him of their findings. They used the meeting with Mr. Ryan to raise broader concerns about the direction of the House Intelligence Committee under its chairman, Representative Devin Nunes of California, the officials said.

Burr is denying the substance of the Times report; CNN’s Manu Raju reports, though, that even if Burr is telling the truth (rather than simply trying to save face) other Republicans are plenty suspicious of Nunes themselves:

Burr is being categorical in his denial of this, but that doesn't mean many in Senate don't suspect Nunes of being behind the leak of Warner texts. They may not have concluded he leaked it, but GOP and D sens don't trust Nunes and some suspect he did. https://t.co/gOxWEm9SHm — Manu Raju (@mkraju) March 1, 2018

This is not nearly the first Russia-related soup Nunes has gotten into; his previous greatest hits including being forced to admit that he hasn’t personally read the court documents that he based an FBI–Hillary conspiracy memo on, being forced to admit that the FBI actually did disclose the information about Trump “dossier” author Christopher Steele that Nunes had accused it of not disclosing, and being forced to admit that he had coordinated his statements about the phony Obama “wiretapping” story with the White House and then lied about it. He’s forced to admit a lot of things. (He also launched his own pretend news website, whose work has included the observation that Devin Nunes is “what a hero looks like.”)

The conservative site RedState responded to Thursday’s latest embarrassment by calling for Nunes to resign his membership on the Intel committee (or for Paul Ryan to force him out):

Nunes is compromised by his partisanship. He must step down or be forced to step down immediately. Not getting rid of his presence on this committee sends a clear message to other politicians and to either side’s base voters that this type of behavior is okay. We cannot tolerate this behavior, however, because of the nature of the intelligence committee’s job.

Meet the Press host Chuck Todd then went so far as to call Nunes’ handling of House Intel “a mess.”

Other than POTUS, not sure Devin Nunes has many allies left. Shocked at how long @SpeakerRyan has allowed this House intel cmte mess to continue. https://t.co/X4dlVzxBgy — Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) March 1, 2018

When someone who embodies the ostentatiously objective, assiduously nonpartisan school of Beltway journalism as much as Todd does is willing to call you a “mess,” the soup is starting to get pretty hot. As Todd notes, though, one service of great value that Nunes provides to the Republican Party is being willing to channel Donald Trump’s talking points—and wishes regarding the direction of the House’s Russia inquiry—from a position of (ostensible) independence. This mess could well continue for some time.</s>The top Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee held an extraordinary meeting last month with House Speaker Paul Ryan to express concerns about the House Intelligence Committee, a Ryan spokeswoman confirmed Thursday.

The acknowledgement from Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong followed a New York Times report saying the two senators, Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), had concluded that House Intelligence Committee Republicans leaked a batch of Warner's text messages to Fox News earlier this month soon after the House panel obtained transcripts of the texts.

“The speaker heard the senators on their concerns and encouraged them to take them up directly with their counterparts," Strong said in a statement. Ryan's office declined to confirm whether the senators called the meeting specifically to complain about the breach.

It is a rare and dramatic gesture for senators to cross the Capitol to complain about their House counterparts, and the meeting with Ryan — the details of which remain murky — appears to be the latest sign of political rancor generated by the House panel, led by its controversial chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).

Burr told reporters at the Capitol that the Times story's suggestion that he concluded House Republicans were behind the leak was incorrect, saying only that he and Warner met with Ryan to update him on the Senate's panel’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

But the issue casts an even darker pall over a House Intelligence Committee hobbled by partisan feuding. Earlier this week, Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.), said he was so fed up with the committee's internal rancor, including alleged media leaks by Democratic members, that he wants the panel's Russia investigation shut down. Though other Republicans haven't gone as far, they've encouraged a swift expedient conclusion for the panel's probe.

The text messages obtained by Fox News last month indicated that Warner had texted last year with Washington lobbyist Adam Waldman in an effort to reach Christopher Steele, the author of a private intelligence dossier of damaging allegations about President Donald Trump's ties to Russia. The committee had struggled for months to contact Steele and the messages suggested Warner had hoped Waldman, an associate of Steele's, could put the panel in touch with the British former spy.

The leak of Warner’s messages was a startling breach, particularly because the Senate Intelligence Committee has operated largely free of public sparring and recriminations — in stark contrast with the House Intelligence Committee, where months of partisan feuding has led to near-total dysfunction.

According to the Times, the senators began to suspect House Republicans were behind the leak because the House had only recently obtained Warner's text messages. According to the Times, the version supplied to Fox News was marked as a Senate document but lacked page numbers — even though the Senate’s version was paginated.

Burr hasn't indicated whether he and Warner raised suspicions with Ryan about House Republicans' role in the leak.

When asked at the Capitol, Warner did not deny that the issue came up in the meeting with Ryan.

"I've been very proud of how our committee has operated in a bipartisan way, where we're going after the truth," he said. "No individual enterprise will interfere in that."

Aides to Warner and Burr did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Nunes did not respond either.

Republicans on the House committee were furious on Tuesday, after nine hours of testimony from White House Communications Director Hope Hicks. Shortly after Hicks departed, stories emerged indicated she had admitted to telling "white lies" on the president's behalf.

Rooney publicly blamed Democrats for selectively leaking portions of Hicks's testimony, telling CNN Tuesday night that Hicks had admitted to the equivalent of saying her boss was not in his office to avoid an unwelcome phone call. After consulting with her lawyers, Hicks made clear that she had never lied about anything related to the Russia investigation.

But Hicks also declined to say whether others in the president's inner circle and family had instructed her to lie, according to a source present for her interview.

Democrats on the panel are increasingly concerned that Republicans will shutter the investigation prematurely and begin drafting a final report, even though both sides are hopelessly divided on the most politically sensitive question of their probe: whether anyone in Trump's orbit aided the Russian effort to influence the 2016 election.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the committee's top Democrat, has released a long list of subpoena requests he and other Democrats had been denied by Republicans.

"The integrity and independence of the Committee and Congress’ investigative and enforcement powers are at stake," Schiff said in a Wednesday statement.

Elana Schor and John Bresnahan contributed to this report.</s>WASHINGTON — The day began with President Donald Trump publicly belittling his attorney general, and ended with him losing his communications director amid growing indications of the turmoil from a criminal probe seeping through his administration.

Just one of several news developments Wednesday was a report from NBC that Robert Mueller's probe has begun interrogating witnesses about Trump, and whether he knew in advance about Russian hacking of Democrats' emails, and whether he helped with the strategy of their publication.

The intrigue was stoked with the release of a memo by a congressional committee over the weekend: the memo written by Democrats on the House intelligence committee alleged Russians tipped off contacts on the Trump campaign in advance about the release of stolen emails.

On Wednesday, he used Twitter to disparage Attorney General Jeff Sessions, bemoaning the overly meek response to what he argues is the real scandal: an abusive use of surveillance by law enforcement which he said helped start the whole Russia scandal.

The tweet was unusual enough to draw criticism on Fox News. Afternoon show host Neil Cavuto applauded the president for showing leadership in a meeting on gun control, but criticized him for showing the opposite of leadership in his treatment of Sessions.

Fox's legal analyst urged the president not to fire Sessions. He said Sessions might quit out of embarrassment — but he warned that any move to force him out against his will, on a sensitive criminal matter so close to the president, would uncork a major crisis.

"(It would be) another impetus for impeachment,'' said Andrew Napolitano. "An explosion (Trump) doesn’t need... It would pry loose moderate Republicans (who would) start talking to Democrats (about)... 'What are we going to do about this?'"

Trump's own son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has just had his access to sensitive intelligence information curtailed. A Washington Post piece said Kushner's unreported contacts with certain foreign government officials had raised concerns, and that foreign governments sought to use the debt of Kushner's family business against him.

In addition, Trump's deputy campaign manager Rick Gates, and foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, have both pleaded guilty to crimes in the Mueller probe and are now co-operating with the FBI.

The White House said the surprise news of her departure had nothing to do with the Russia probe. It said her departure had been planned for a while. But it came as a shock — Hicks was a top presidential loyalist, and a Trump family friend.

It arrived one day after Hicks testified about the Russia affair, in an hours-long appearance before the House intelligence committee. One purported leaked detail from her testimony that appeared in press reports said Hicks admitted that she felt the need, sometimes, to lie for the president.

She reportedly added that these lies were never about serious, or legal, issues. She had been part of a critical strategy session where the White House decided to draft a misleading statement about a 2016 meeting between Trump's entourage and Russians.</s>WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee were behind the leak of private text messages between the Senate panel’s top Democrat and a Russian-connected lawyer, according to two congressional officials briefed on the matter.

Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, the committee’s Republican chairman, and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat, were so perturbed by the leak that they demanded a rare meeting with Speaker Paul D. Ryan last month to inform him of their findings. They used the meeting with Mr. Ryan to raise broader concerns about the direction of the House Intelligence Committee under its chairman, Representative Devin Nunes of California, the officials said.

To the senators, who are overseeing what is effectively the last bipartisan investigation on Capitol Hill into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, the leak was a serious breach of protocol and a partisan attack by one intelligence committee against the other.

The messages between Mr. Warner and Adam Waldman, a Washington lawyer, show that the senator tried for weeks to arrange a meeting with Christopher Steele, the former British spy who assembled a dossier of salacious claims about connections between Mr. Trump, his associates and Russia. The Senate committee has had difficulty making contact with Mr. Steele, whom it views as a key witness. And Mr. Waldman, who knew Mr. Steele, presented himself as a willing partner.</s>
• Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee reportedly leaked private text messages between the top Senate Intelligence Committee Democrat and a lobbyist connected to former British spy Christopher Steele.
• The messages were part of Sen. Mark Warner's effort to set up a meeting with Steele.
• The committee and FBI are using Steele's research as a roadmap in the Russia investigation.
• Warner informed his colleagues on the panel of his communications with the lobbyist months before they were leaked to the press.

Sign up for the latest Russia investigation updates here.

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee leaked the private text messages between a top Senate Intelligence Committee Democrat and a Russia-linked lobbyist to the media, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, exchanged the messages with lobbyist Adam Waldman after Waldman said he could put Warner in touch with former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.

Steele compiled the dossier alleging collusion between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia. He is a central figure in Republican inquiries about the integrity of the FBI's Russia investigation.

Fox News first published the messages between Warner and Waldman, in which Warner appeared to be working to establish contact with Steele in an effort to get him to testify before the Senate panel as it investigates links between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The messages that were published spanned two months, from March to May of last year. Warner initially tried to set up a meeting with Steele in London, but Steele was worried about leaks and wanted a bipartisan letter from the Senate committee inviting him to testify, according to the messages.

Trump and his supporters, especially those in right-wing media, latched onto the messages.

"Wow! -Senator Mark Warner got caught having extensive contact with a lobbyist for a Russian oligarch," Trump tweeted on February 8. "Warner did not want a 'paper trail' on a 'private' meeting (in London) he requested with Steele of fraudulent Dossier fame. All tied into Crooked Hillary."

Soon after, however, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, threw cold water on suggestions that Warner had acted to conceal his efforts to contact Steele.

"Sen.Warner fully disclosed this to the committee four months ago.Has had zero impact on our work," Rubio tweeted.

Waldman handed over copies of the messages to the Senate committee last year. In January, The Times reported, a staffer for Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee, requested that the messages be shared with the House panel as well. Fox News published the transcripts days later.

Nunes' spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Monday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, who is conducting a separate investigation into alleged FBI misconduct, sent Waldman a letter asking about the nature of his relationship with Steele.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., right, and the committee's Vice Chairman Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. meet with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 29, 2017. AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Senate investigators sound the alarm over the House Russia probe

The decision by Republicans on the House Intelligence panel to leak Warner's texts reportedly raised red flags for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle on the Senate committee.

Warner and Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr were said to be so troubled by the leak that they reported it to House Speaker Paul Ryan, while also raising concerns about the meandering direction of the House Russia probe.

The committee's investigation began by focusing on the extent of Russia's interference in the 2016 election, and whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow at any point to tilt the race in his favor.

But Nunes confounded his colleagues last year when he secretly traveled to the White House to brief the Trump administration on classified intelligence that Trump later said "somewhat vindicated" his unproven claims that former President Barack Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump Tower during the election.

Nunes recused himself from the Russia investigation last April amid an ethics probe into whether he disclosed classified intelligence during a press conference. The Ethics Committee closed the case in December. He is still officially recused.

Despite that, Nunes has remained very much involved in the committee's investigation and has since launched his own inquiry into purported corruption and anti-Trump bias within the FBI and the Department of Justice.

Along that vein, Nunes' staff authored a controversial memo last month alleging that the FBI and DOJ abused their surveillance authority when seeking a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page shortly before the 2016 election.

Democrats on the panel later released their own rebuttal disputing many of the central claims in the Nunes memo.</s>One of the more difficult aspects of the Trump/Russia investigation has been the Senate running a relatively bipartisan effort, yet the House committee has been actively squabbling as “recused” committee head Devin Nunes keeps trying to release memos and generally obsfucate investigations into whether Russia attempted to influence the election and if so, why. The two committees have not been particular fans of each other, but new allegations have stepped up the animosity, as the Senate Intelligence Committee has alleged House Republican’s leaked a Senator’s text messages to Fox News.

It starts with ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner. Warner, and indeed the Senate as a body, has been attempting to bring Christopher Steele, the author of a dossier that notoriously alleged Trump hired prostitutes to urinate on a bed Obama slept in, to testify. They’ve already spoken to his boss, Glenn Simpson, but would like to ask Steele more questions. As part of those efforts, Warner contacted attorney Adam Waldman, who is reportedly close to Steele. Waldman has extensive (and publicly disclosed) contacts with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, so Waldman, for the sake of transparency, submitted copies of the messages, and Warner informed his colleagues of his efforts.

Then the House requested the Senate’s documentation, which it shared. And then, somehow, Warner’s text messages wound up on Fox News, practically straight from the congressional copier, according to a New York Times report:

The documents published by Fox News appear to back up the senators’ accusation. Though they were marked “CONFIDENTIAL: Produced to USSSCI on a Confidential Basis,” suggesting that they had come from the Senate panel, known as the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the person familiar with the congressional requests said that the stamp was misleading and that other markings gave away their actual origin… Specifically, the copy of the messages shared with the Senate was paginated, and the one submitted to the House — while preserving the reference to the Senate committee — was unpaginated… A lawyer for Mr. Waldman independently concluded that the House committee had probably shared the document and sent a letter to Mr. Nunes complaining about the leak, according to a person familiar with the letter.

While Fox News obviously won’t disclose its source, it’s pretty clear who Warner and Republican Senator Richard Burr, head of the Senate Committee, believe did it. Elsewhere in the New York Times reporting, it notes that Warner and Burr complained to House Speaker Paul Ryan about Nunes, and Nunes’ spokesman, when contacted by the Times, didn’t deny that the leak came from the committee. Burr and Warner didn’t recommend any specific sanction or action be taken against Nunes, but they are clearly upset. And it will likely cause more problems, as now the Senate has no reason to believe the House committee will respect its work, or the data it gathers.</s>Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia (left) and Sen. Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, spoke to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) about their concerns over the leak, according to The New York Times. (Aaron Bernstein / Reuters)

The Senate Intelligence Committee has found that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are responsible for leaking to Fox News confidential text messages between the Senate panel’s highest ranking Democrat and a Washington lobbyist associated with a Russian billionaire, sources familiar with the situation told The New York Times on Thursday.

Two Senate committee members ― Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), whose texts were leaked, and Sen. Richard M. Burr (R-N.C.), the panel’s chairman ― were “perturbed” by the findings and discussed them with House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) last month, the sources told the Times.

The senators, whose committee is conduction an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, reportedly relayed to Ryan their concern about the direction of the House panel under the leadership of its chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). Nunes drafted and pushed for public release a controversial memo last month accusing the Justice Department and FBI of impropriety in their separate probe into the Russian meddling and possible connections to President Donald Trump’s campaign.

Fox News touted the text exchange as an “exclusive,” but even some Republicans discounted its worth.

Warner disclosed to his committee months before the leak that he had reached out last year to lobbyist Adam Waldman, who runs a firm that worked with a Russian oligarch named Oleg Deripaska in 2009 and 2010. Warner hoped Waldman could connect him with Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the now infamous dossier that, among other things, alleges a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

The leaked communication also appears to fall in line with Warner’s duties on the intelligence committee. Nevertheless, Trump seized on the shell of a controversy to attempt to discredit the investigations into the role Russia played in influencing the 2016 election.

Both the timing of the Fox News report and markings on the documents they published indicated to the Senate committee that Republicans on the House committee were behind the leak, the sources told the Times.

The documents containing the texts were leaked just days after one of Nunes’ staff members asked the Senate committee to share copies of the exchange with the House committee, one source said. Additionally, neither the documents sent to the House committee nor the ones published by Fox News contained page numbers, while the original copy possessed by the Senate committee did.

Watch news, TV and more on Yahoo View.</s>The Senate and the House are worlds apart on intelligence.

The Senate intelligence committee has concluded that Republicans serving on their counterpart in the House were behind a leak involving texts between a Senate Democrat and a lawyer with Russian connections, according to a report on Thursday.

The Senate panel’s leaders called for a meeting with House speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to discuss the breach last month, the New York Times reported.

Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) demanded the rare sit down to talk about their findings and general concerns about the House intelligence committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).

Earlier this month, Fox News published text messages between Warner and Hillary Clinton-connected lobbyist and lawyer Adam Waldman.

Warner was attempting to contact Christopher Steele, the former British spy behind a salacious dossier outlining alleged connections between President Trump’s campaign and Russia.

Trump erupted on Twitter after Fox published the texts, questioning why Warner would want a private meeting with Steele.

Warner and Burr issued a joint statement condemning “leaks of incomplete information out of context by anyone, inside or outside our committee.”

Democrats blast holes in Nunes memo with volley of facts, logic

The leak came shortly after Nunes pushed for the release of a GOP-penned memo accusing top brass at the FBI of anti-Trump bias.

According to the Times, Waldman originally submitted the texts to the Senate committee as part of its investigation. A staffer for Nunes requested in January that copies of the messages also be shared with the House committee.

A spokesperson for Nunes did not deny that the committee had leaked the messages in a statement to the Times.

“The New York Times, a prominent purveyor of leaks, is highlighting anonymous sources leaking information that accuses Republicans of leaking information,” spokesperson Jack Langer told the Times. “I’m not sure if this coverage could possibly get more absurd.”

Devin Nunes’ campaign has been running its own news website

Burr told reporters on Thursday that he and Warner did not talk to Ryan specifically about concerns over Nunes. He added that he had “no ask” of the speaker.</s>Maybe someday there will be an investigation of collusion between Congressional Republicans and Fox News. Those texts for sure contain some bombshells.

And here's one: the New York Times reports this morning that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee leaked texts originating with Democratic Senator Mark Warner to Fox News.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee were behind the leak of private text messages between the Senate panel’s top Democrat and a Russian-connected lawyer, according to two congressional officials briefed on the matter. Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, the committee’s Republican chairman, and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat, were so perturbed by the leak that they demanded a rare meeting with Speaker Paul D. Ryan last month to inform him of their findings. They used the meeting with Mr. Ryan to raise broader concerns about the direction of the House Intelligence Committee under its chairman, Representative Devin Nunes of California, the officials said. To the senators, who are overseeing what is effectively the last bipartisan investigation on Capitol Hill into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, the leak was a serious breach of protocol and a partisan attack by one intelligence committee against the other.

This is a big deal, not just because Republicans leaking classified intel to their propaganda outlet is ethically wrong, but because communication between the House and Senate is usually handled in a delicate way. House doesn't mess with Senate communications, and vice-versa. Until now, with the incredibly corrupt and colluding Nunes committee.

And of course Paul Ryan is being a coward about doing anything to stop it.

In the video above, Andrea Mitchell brings the breaking news to Jill Wine-Banks for her legal opinion, and while Wine-Banks isn't sure Warner would sue over this, she and Mitchell agree this is a "new low" in an era where new lows happen every single day under Republican "leadership."

Of course, Andrea Mitchell misses the great "bipartisanship" of the good old days. Which party took that away, Mrs. Greenspan?

The entire corrupt Republican Party must go.
An alleged Senate Intelligence Committee report states that a House Intelligence Committee Republican was behind the leak to Fox News of private text messages between a Russian-connected lawyer and Senator Mark Warner, the committee vice-chairman, concerning an attempt to contact Christopher Steele, author of the Trump–Russia dossier. Committee chairman Richard Burr later denied the leak report.