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Former White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said his old boss, former President Barack Obama, is worried about a lack of progress in Washington D.C.

"[He's] viewing it from a distance, where he's writing a book, but I think that he's genuinely concerned," Earnest said on MSNBC on Friday.

Earnest said Obama sees the White House and the federal government as "as an institution that could be used to advance the interest of the American public," and a lack of forward movement is a concern, "not just for the former president of the United States but Americans of both parties across the country."

With regards to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes who has been accused of colluding with the White House on matters related to the committee's investigation of the Trump campaign and Russia Earnest said the current administration should be disturbed by how that meeting has been perceived.

Related: Obama Spokesman Disputes Trump's Wiretapping Claim

"For the White House, I do think they have to be concerned because it looks like they're trying to launder this information through the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Community again to try to exonerate or at least defend the tweets of the president of the United States," Earnest said.

The former press secretary said intelligence officials scrambling to prove the validity of a tweet should be of concern to the public.

"What's problematic for the American people is that you have senior intelligence officials on the National Security Council that are not pouring over intelligence reports trying to figure out how to keep the country safe they're poring over intelligence reports trying to figure out how they can defend an ultimately defenseless tweet that included a baseless accusation from the president of the United States," Earnest added.

He added that the Democrats aren't losing sleep over whether or not they should be working with moderate Republicans. Earnest cited the current president's unpopularity in suggesting he has no hold over the Democrats' decisions.

He said Democrats are waiting for Republicans to make the first move in reaching across the aisle to work with them.

"So are they going to be interested in trying to cooperate with Republicans to do the right thing for the country? They might be," Earnest said. "But that's going to have to start with Republicans actually showing a good faith effort to being interested in talking to Democrats."

Link:
Obama Is 'Genuinely Concerned' About Lack of Progress in Washington: Earnest - NBCNews.com

The White House is asking Congress to dig deeper into whether communications of Trump associates were improperly picked up and disseminated during surveillance operations, after an ex-Obama administration official suggested her former colleagues tried to gather such material.

White House Counsel Don McGahn specifically cited Evelyn Farkas comments in a letter to the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee, as he invited lawmakers to view documents that apparently show surveillance of Trump associates during the transition.

The leaders of that committee have been openly and bitterly sparring over those documents, with top Democrat Adam Schiff, D-Calif., blasting Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., for viewing the files on White House grounds and unilaterally announcing their contents to the media. Schiff and others Democrats have demanded Nunes recuse himself from a related Russia investigation, but Trump allies have defended Nunes and say the real issue is improper surveillance during the prior administration.

'I had talked to some of my former colleagues and I knew that they were trying to also help get information to the Hill. Thats why you have the leaking.'

- Evelyn Farkas

McGahn moved to flip the script in his letter to Nunes and Schiff, pointing to Farkas comments as an indication of possible inappropriate accumulation or dissemination of classified information.

Farkas, deputy assistant secretary of defense under then-President Barack Obama, discussed collection efforts by her colleagues during a March 2 interview with MSNBC. During the interview, Farkas, now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and MSNBC analyst, said she was urging former colleagues and people on the Hill to get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration.

STRASSEL: DEM SPIN CAN'T HIDE EVIDENCE NUNES IS RIGHT

She said there were concerns that if Trump officials knew what they knew about Trump staff dealing with Russians, they would cut off access to the intelligence. She continued, I had talked to some of my former colleagues and I knew that they were trying to also help get information to the Hill. Thats why you have the leaking."

Farkas parted ways with the White House in 2015 and defended herself on Twitter, saying she didnt personally give anybody anything except advice on Russia information and wanted Congress to ask for facts.

She also told The Daily Caller she was not involved in circulating any intelligence, saying, I wasnt in government anymore and didnt have access to any.

But even if Farkas was not personally involved with any of the collection, McGahn asked the House committee to look at how such intelligence was gathered.

He asked them to probe whether there was any improper unmasking or distribution of intelligence, and whether civil liberties of U.S. citizens were violated.

He also asked whether the information Farkas referred to was provided to members of Congress or their staff.

The letter puts new pressure on the committee to investigate such collection and leaks, even as Democrats pressure Nunes to step away from an investigation looking at Russian meddling in last years campaign, including any Trump associate connections to Russia. Nunes has focused on issues like the improper unmasking of Americans in intelligence collection efforts, and Farkas comments are sure to fuel that line of inquiry.

David Bossie, a Fox News contributor who was Trumps deputy campaign manager, called Farkas comments devastating and said she should be subpoenaed by Congress.

Meanwhile, new information is coming to light about how Nunes obtained the information last week about apparent surveillance efforts. Fox News has confirmed that two White House staffers aided Nunes as he searched for proof that Trump transition team members were surveilled.

As first reported by The New York Times, the staffers were identified as Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a senior intelligence director at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, who works for the White House counsels office.

Ellis used to work for the House Intelligence Committee. Cohen-Watnick is a protg of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, whose communications with the Russian ambassador were revealed earlier this year, leading to his resignation.

It appears the information about surveillance and unmasking was discovered by Cohen-Watnick on the Executive Branch computer system. After the information apparently made its way to the counsels office, Nunes came to the White House grounds to review it on March 21.

Fox News John Roberts contributed to this report.

Read more from the original source:
White House wants Congress to dig deeper on snooping after Obama official comments - Fox News

This article has been updated.

It has been tricky for President Trump and his allies to retroactively figure out how to explain his tweets about then-President Barack Obama wiretapping Trump Tower. Trump himself has pointed in various directions random news reports, a headline in the New York Times, etc. and his allies have, over time, embraced a variety of other theories. The most likely explanation continues to be the one that emerged shortly after he first tweeted the allegation: Hed read a Breitbart article summarizing a claim made by radio host Mark Levin and ran with it in an unfounded direction.

A hallmark of Trumps public persona, though, is that he is never (or only very, very rarely) wrong. Many of his supporters, asked to choose between what Trump says and what the media says in response, are similarly inclined to side with and try to rationalize what Trump has argued.

Two weeks ago, that rationalization took the form of embracing the vague assertions of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), whose announcement that hed seen not-very-exculpatory documents quickly metastasized into a political problem for Nunes himself as it became clear that the trigger for his seeing those documents was someone in the administration.

This week, a new and unlikely hero: Evelyn Farkas.

Farkas is a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia who served in that role from 2012 until she resigned at the end of October 2015. On March 2, she appeared on MSNBCs Morning Joe, discussing a New York Times article about how the Obama administration had tried to ensure that evidence of Russias involvement in the election would not be lost under Trump.

HOST MIKA BRZEZINSKI: You actually knew about this attempt to get and preserve information and, full transparency, were doing some work yourself. Tell us about that.

FARKAS: Well, I was urging my former colleagues, and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill it was more, actually, aimed at telling the Hill people: Get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration, because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior people that left. So it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy.

That the Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about their, the staff, the Trump staffs dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. So I became very worried, because not enough was coming out into the open, and I knew that there was more.

We have very good intelligence on Russia. So then I had talked to some of my former colleagues, and I knew that they were trying to also help get information to the Hill.

BRZEZINSKI: A lot going on today.

FARKAS: But thats why you have the leaking.

To defend President Trump's wiretapping claims, White House press secretary Sean Spicer brought up statements Obama official Evelyn Farkas, who left the administration in 2015, made on television in recent weeks. (Reuters)

During his daily news briefing on Thursday, press secretary Sean Spicer twice referred to those comments from Farkas, which had been featured on conservative radio and on Fox News website the day prior.

[I]f I can go back for a second to something that the Obama administrations Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense noted very clearly on the record, Spicer said, that they were engaged in an effort to spread information about Trump officials that had come up in intelligence. Thats not that is several networks. Evelyn Farkas made that proclamation about what was going on during the Obama administration regarding the Trump team. So that is something that they made very clear on the record.

Asked about it by radio host Hugh Hewitt, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus called it incredible.

[I]ts so cavalier and unbelievable that I just wonder whether this person knows what the heck shes talking about, Priebus said.

The headline on the Fox News story summarized the defense: Former Obama official discloses rush to get intelligence on Trump team.

Youll notice that were a few steps removed from the Trump tweets themselves. Trumps wiretapping claims were somehow validated by what Nunes had seen granting Trump the flexibility that wiretapping didnt necessarily mean an actual wiretap but instead broad surveillance and that his phones meant communications systems that may not have been actual phones and may not have been actually his and may not have been actually at Trump Tower. But then the administration was forced to defend how Nunes got that information in the first place, which is how we end up at Farkas: It wasnt necessarily someone at the White House who leaked that information to Nunes (though reporting suggests that it was).

Spicer again:

[I]f you look at Obamas Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense that is out there, Evelyn Farkas, she made it clear that it was their goal to spread this information around, that they went around and did this. And she said, Thats why there are so many leaks. They have admitted on the record that this was their goal to leak stuff. And they literally she said on the record Trumps team. There are serious questions out there about what happened and why and who did it. And I think thats really where our focus is in making sure that that information gets out.

Thats not really what Farkas said. She said that she had encouraged people in the administration and on Capitol Hill to investigate links between the Trump campaign and Russia in the window before Trump took office and to protect that information from the incoming administration, lest the methods used to collect it be compromised and the information buried. That concern that the truth be known, she said, is why information was being leaked and she hoped what wasnt leaked was protected.

Update: Farkas spoke to The Posts Karen De Young on Thursday night, saying that she didnt give anybody anything except advice. In an interview with the Daily Caller, she said, I had no intelligence whatsoever, I wasnt in government anymore and didnt have access to any.

To some extent, this is all framing. If youre inclined to believe that Trump was unfairly targeted by the Obama administration, you will read Farkass comments as Spicer does. If you are inclined not to, you may have a different interpretation.

Its critical to remember here, though, that Farkas wasnt a part of the administration. Shes someone who had access to information about Russia while she worked for the Defense Department, but she left that role before Trump won a single vote in a single primary. She certainly still knew people within the administration, and she mentions them. But the only thing she attributes to people who still worked for the administration is that they were trying to also help get information to the Hill precisely what the Times story said.

This is mostly sleight of hand. The question of why Trump tweeted what he did has largely been answered, with even Nunes admitting that theres no evidence Trump was wiretapped. The question of how Nunes got his information is still a bit uncertain, but its coming into focus. It seems pretty clear, though, that unless your question is the already-answered one of whether or not there was any investigation into Trump at all what someone who didnt work for Obama at all during 2016 said two days before Trumps tweets didnt have much to do with any of it.

Excerpt from:
The latest attempt to validate Trump's wiretapping claim? An Obama official who left in 2015. - Washington Post

Obama administration officials were so concerned about what would happen to key classified documents related to the Russia probe once President Trump took office that they created a list of document serial numbers to give to senior members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, a former Obama official told NBC News.

The official said that after the list of documents related to the probe into Russian interference in the U.S. election was created in early January, he hand-carried it to the committee members. The numbers themselves were not classified, said the official.

Related: Flynn and Nunes Fallout Grows Ominous For Trump White House

The purpose, said the official, was to make it "harder to bury" the information, "to share it with those on the Hill who could lawfully see the documents," and to make sure it could reside in an Intelligence committee safe, "not just at Langley [CIA hq]."

Read the rest here:
Obama Officials Made List of Russia Probe Documents to Keep Them Safe - NBCNews.com

After eight years of the often thankless work required of the leader of the free world, Barack Obama seems to be enjoying doing what he wants. He's visited the British Virgin Islands, Hawaii and French Polynesia. He's gone kite-surfing, played golf, visited an art gallery and caught a Broadway play. After all the time and energy he put into running for president and being president, most Americans probably think he's entitled to tend to his own needs.

But not everyone agrees. The headline on an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal suggests that he get to work on a formidable new task: "Obama Should Make Saving Chicago His Pet Project."

Which gives us an opportunity to discuss the post-presidential Obama. Expect to read many, many uninvited suggestions for how he should spend his time. The author of this commentary, Chicagoan Gary MacDougal, who served as CEO of Mark Controls Corp. and chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, wants the former president to take on the mission of reducing violence in the city where he once lived.

"He and Mayor Rahm Emanuel should form a citywide task force to find a way to stop the killing and start saving lives," writes McDougal, who once served on a task force with him. "Mr. Obama is extremely popular in Chicago's black community and young gang members who have ignored all previous calls to put down their guns might listen to him." The objective, says McDougal, "would be to make Chicago the safest large city in the country."

This suggestion brings to mind The Onion article that ran after the 2008 presidential election: "Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job." Obama may think he's done enough in the way of public service by shepherding the economy out of a severe recession, enacting a major health care overhaul, revamping financial regulation and taking steps against climate change. If you think all that didn't take a toll, compare photos of Obama in 2008 with those of 2016.

He has other pressing obligations, including some of value to people in Chicago. Planning, financing and building his presidential library and museum on the South Side will demand a lot of his attention before the planned 2021 opening. Obama has reportedly already started work on a memoir encompassing his White House years and it no doubt will run longer than the 464-page "Dreams of My Father," which covered less consequential years.

Why should he be the person to tackle violence in Chicago? Obama has spent little time here since becoming president. He and his wife Michelle have rented a house in Washington, where they are expected to stay at least until 15-year-old Sasha completes high school. He has no special expertise in crime prevention, and the relationships he once had with ordinary Chicagoans are no longer fresh. By now, others know the terrain much better than Obama does.

Besides, combating violence and its causes is really the job of the mayor, the City Council and the police superintendent. We're not convinced a panel of worthies, no matter who they might be, would do a lot to instill peaceable behavior among gang members or other violent residents. But if a task force holds any promise, plenty of other locals could lend it credibility. How about the Rev. Otis Moss III, Chance the Rapper, the Rev. Michael Pfleger or Dwyane Wade? Community leaders whose names are not famous could be enlisted. Local business executives could offer help creating avenues for employment to steer young people out of trouble. Corporations and foundations ought to be encouraged to invest more in blighted areas.

Obama's library and museum could be part of this effort, but it's too much to expect the former president to be the savior of Chicago. In the first place, he has too many other things on his plate. In the second, who would want to break the news to Michelle?

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Should Obama save Chicago? That's asking too much. - Chicago Tribune