House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes spoke to reporters earlier today and said he had seen no evidence of any contacts between the Trump administration and Russia. He also said he’d been told by people inside the intelligence community “there’s nothing there.”

Nunes opened himself to questions and was asked by CNN’s Manu Raju, “Can you say categorically that there were no contacts whatsoever between any officials affiliated with the Russian government and the Trump campaign?”

“Not that I’m aware of. We still haven’t seen any evidence of anyone from the Trump campaign, or any other campaign for that matter, that’s communicated with the Russian government,” Nunes replied.

Raju then asked why Nunes had agreed to talk to a reporter about the matter at the request of the White House. Nunes replied by turning the question around, “If the White House asked me to talk to you would you think that that would be okay or not okay?” When Raju suggested that the White House was urging Nunes to “knock down these stories” Nunes replied, “No, that absolutely didn’t happen.”

A few minutes later another reporter asked, “So the FBI specifically told you that they have found no contacts between any Trump associates and Russian officials.”

“As of right now I don’t have any evidence of any phone calls. It doesn’t mean they don’t exist but I don’t have that. And what I’ve been told by many folks is that there’s nothing there,” Nunes replied.

A few minutes later Nunes was asked again by CNN’s Jim Sciutto to clarify that he has been told there’s no evidence of any contacts. “The way it sounds like to me is it’s been looked into and there is no evidence of anything there. Obviously we’d like to know if there is,” Nunes said.

Asked if a special prosecutor was appropriate, Nunes said there would be nothing for them to do. “If at some point serious crimes have been committed it would be something that we’d consider but at this point we don’t have that,” Nunes said. He added, “But at this point the only serious crimes we have are leaks that have come out of our government to the press and others.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QheAtCaeMk