***UPDATE 2: Here’s the clarification from Nunez’s office via The Blaze:
UPDATE 11:00 a.m. ET — Rep. Nune’s director of communications, Jack Langer, clarified the congressman’s comments Thursday morning:
What Rep. Nunes meant by “tapped” was that the DOJ seized the phone records, as has been widely reported. There was a little confusion between him and the host during the conversation: He did not mean to refer to phone records of the cloakroom itself, but of the Capitol. This refers to the phone records for the AP from the House press gallery, which the DOJ admitted to looking at.
He was explaining that if those phone records were seized, they would reveal a lot of conversations between the press and members of Congress, since reporters often speak to Members from the press gallery phones. The notion of the DOJ looking at phone records from the Capitol of conversations between Members of Congress and reporters is something that concerns Rep. Nunes, bringing up issues related to the separation of powers.
***UPDATE: @AG_Conservative on twitter offered a slightly different interpretation of what Nunes said in his interview with Hugh Hewitt. He believes Nunes meant that the Cloak Room phone was one of the numbers included in the secret AP subpoena by the DOJ because members of Congress had spoken with the AP from the Cloak Room during that 2 month time period. He doesn’t believe Nunes meant that the DOJ subpoenaed the phone records specifically from the Cloak Room itself.
It would make more sense as to why Rep. Nunes would be the one announcing this instead of Speaker Boehner at a press conference. But I must say that Nunes wasn’t very clear in the way he expressed it.
I’ve updated the post below and my post title to reflect this more plausible scenario.
***
Wow. It looks like the DOJ’s subpoena of the AP’s phone records included phone records from the Cloak Room in the House of Representatives where members of Congress talk to the press all the time!
This was revealed by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) as he was being interviewed on Hugh Hewitt’s show tonight. Listen to the exchange (via The Blaze):
Hugh Hewitt: The idea that this might be a Geithner-Axelrod plan, and by that, the sort of intimation, Henry II style, will no one rid me of this turbulent priest, will no one rid me of these turbulent Tea Parties, that might have just been a hint, a shift of an eyebrow, a change in the tone of voice. That’s going to take a long time to get to. I don’t trust the Department of Justice on this. Do you, Congressman Nunes?
Devin Nunes: No, I absolutely do not, especially after this wiretapping incident, essentially, of the House of Representative. I don’t think people are focusing on the right thing when they talk about going after the AP reporters. The big problem that I see is that they actually tapped right where I’m sitting right now, the Cloak Room.
HH: Wait a minute, this is news to me.
DN: The Cloak Room in the House of Representatives.
HH: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
DN: So when they went after the AP reporters, right? Went after all of their phone records, they went after the phone records, including right up here in the House Gallery, right up from where I’m sitting right now. So you have a real separation of powers issue that did this really rise to the level that you would have to get phone records that would, that would most likely include members of Congress, because as you know…
HH: Wow.
DN: …members of Congress talk to the press all the time.
HH: I did not know that, and that is a stunner.
DN: Now that is a separation of powers issue here, Hugh.
HH: Sure.
DN: And it’s a freedom of press issue. And now you’ve got the IRS going after people. So these things are starting to cascade one upon the other, and you have the White House pretending like they’re in the clouds like it’s not their issue somehow.