Ezra Cohen-Watnick Identified As White House Source In Trump Russia Probe

By Daniel J. Solomon March 30, 2017

A Jewish White House official has been identified as a source for claims from House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes that President Trump and his aides were captured by U.S. surveillance in the lead-up to the presidential election.

Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, was identified to the New York Times as one of the California representative’s two informants.

Cohen-Watnick was almost sacked from his role on the NSC two weeks ago, but the president overruled his national security adviser H.R. McMaster to keep him on. It was said that Cohen-Watnick appealed to Bannon and Kushner for help.

The news comes as Nunes faces sharp challenges from Democrats in his role as the head of the House’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Nunes presented the information last week in an effort to bolster the Trump White House’s assertions that former President Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump officials before the election. He refused to reveal his sources, giving a press conference about his find and then rushing to the White House to confer with the president.

He did not warn the Democrats on the Intelligence Committee, including ranking member Adam Schiff, before going public with his discoveries.

The other official was said to be Michael Ellis, an attorney in the White House counsel’s office.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO