House chairman apologizes to colleagues after Trump briefing

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House claimed vindication while the House intelligence committee chairman privately apologized in the wake of his decision to brief President Donald Trump on secret intelligence intercepts related to a probe of Russian interference in the election.

Rep. Devin Nunes, a California Republican and member of President Donald Trump's transition team, told reporters after his committee's closed-door meeting Thursday that the presidential briefing was "a judgment call on my part" and added, "Sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you make the wrong decision."

Nunes told reporters he had seen new information showing that the communications of Trump transition officials were scooped up through monitoring of other targets and improperly spread through intelligence agencies during the final days of the Obama administration.

Nonetheless, White House spokesman Sean Spicer claimed that Nunes was "vindicating" the president following his unproven assertion about a wiretap, and Republican groups moved quickly to raise money off Nunes' revelations.

[...] Nunes' office disputed that he had released classified information, saying the chairman "did not identify the targets of the surveillance and only spoke in general terms about the content."

Nunes said the information on the Trump team was collected in November, December and January, the period after the election when Trump was holding calls with foreign leaders, interviewing potential Cabinet secretaries and beginning to sketch out administration policy.