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Top Democrat on House Intel committee says he saw the documents at the center of an uproar in the Trump investigation

Apr 1, 2017, 05:04 IST

House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., speaks with reporters about the committee's investigation into Russia's involvement in the recent U.S. presidential election, on Captiol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 7, 2017.AP Photo/Cliff Owen

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee released a statement Friday after visiting the White House to view intelligence documents shared with his Republican counterpart a week ago.

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The classified information shared with House Intelligence chairman Devin Nunes sparked an uproar when Nunes then briefed President Donald Trump on the documents and left his colleagues on the committee out of the loop.

Schiff on Friday slammed the White House's handling of the information, saying "If the White House had any concern over these materials, they should have been shared with the full committees in the first place as a part of our ordinary oversight responsibilities."

Schiff also called on the White House to explain why it initially shared the documents with only Nunes, rather than all of the interested parties.

Nunes' visit to the White House nearly stalled the committee's investigation into alleged contacts between Trump associates and Russia during the election. Nunes had asserted that the information suggested members of the Trump transition may have been caught up in routine surveillance operations after the election.

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Trump had taken that revelation as vindication for his debunked claim that former President Barack Obama had Trump wiretapped during the transition.

In viewing what Schiff said where the same documents shared with Nunes, Schiff said on Friday: "Nothing I could see today warranted a departure from the normal review procedures." Schiff called for the full contents of the documents to be shared with all members of both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.

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