Congress intel leaders invited by White House to see surveillance docs

March 30 (UPI) -- The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said Thursday he's accepted an invitation from the White House to view what may be the same classified documents shown last week to chairman Devin Nunes about government surveillance.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said via Twitter that he received the invitation Thursday afternoon and he had accepted the offer.

"I look forward to reviewing these materials at the earliest opportunity," Schiff said in a response letter to White House Counsel Donald McGahn. "After my review of the materials, we ask for your cooperation with our committee and the relevant agencies which have custody over the original documents."

During his news briefing Thursday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer also said leaders in both the House and Senate panels have been invited to view documents relevant to their investigations of Russia.

Schiff was highly critical of Nunes last week after the chairman announced that he had seen classified information detailing surveillance that had been "incidentally" collected on members of President Donald Trump's transition team in November, December and January.

Nunes said at the time that it appeared the intelligence was collected legally, but expressed concern about the "unmasking" of some of the transition personnel who became swept up in government efforts to collect information related to foreign matters.

In particular, Schiff criticized Nunes for first taking the information to Trump without first showing it to the committee.

The House committee is presently investigating reputed Russian interference in last year's presidential election in an attempt to get Trump elected, and whether that effort involved any members of then-candidate Trump's team.

It's not yet clear if the documents offered by the White House are the same ones that prompted Nunes to make his announcement last week.

"If [they are the] same docs provided to [Nunes] last week, [the White House] has a lot of explaining to do," Schiff tweeted Thursday afternoon.

For more than a week, lawmakers have questioned who the source of the classified documents is. The fact that Nunes said he went to the White House grounds to view them, though, has fueled speculation that they may have come from inside the White House.

Thursday, The New York Times reported that two unidentified people in the White House helped supply Nunes with the information.