-Special counsel Robert Mueller's team is asking witnesses to turn in their phones in order to access encrypted messaging applications, sources tell CNBC.

-Mueller's team has indicated it wants to examine private conversations on WhatsApp, Confide, Signal and Dust, sources say.

-Fearing a subpoena, the witnesses have complied with the request and have given over their phones.

Rep. Tom Rooney, a top Republican lawmaker on the House Intelligence Committee, is ripping President Donald Trump's unsupported claim that the FBI inserted a spy inside his campaign.

"What is the point of saying that there was a spy in the campaign when there was none?" Rooney said in an interview on Wednesday. "You know what I’m saying? It’s like, ‘Lets create this thing to tweet about knowing that it’s not true.’ … Maybe it’s just to create more chaos but it doesn’t really help the case."

Rooney, who did not attend the DOJ briefing last month but said he's been read in on the details, went further than Ryan and Gowdy.

"Look, if you want to disagree with what we were briefed on and say that it was a spy? That’s fine, I guess. We would just disagree with that," he said. "And if that makes us RINOs because we have a different opinion about what the FBI was doing, then I guess we’re RINOs."

it almost becomes a Monty Python bit by the end.