While Democrats on the committee are eager to move forward with the previously scheduled hearings, including the public hearings ...
Devin Nunes has been working with the White House to make sure the committee doesn’t do a thing.
The evidence is now clear that the White House and Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, have worked together to halt what was previously billed as a sweeping investigation of Russian interference in last year’s election.
And now the thing that Nunes really needs is an excuse, even if it’s utterly ludicrous.
Nunes: It appears like the Democrats aren’t really serious about this investigation.
Reporter: But they want to start, they’re saying we should start …
Nunes: They didn’t sign the letter to Director Comey, who is a foundational witness. That didn’t happen. You should ask them why they wouldn’t go sign that letter.
There are two reasons, actually. First, Schiff and others wouldn’t sign because Nunes has contrived the idea of putting the committee in a headlock by setting up conditions Comey won’t agree to, then refusing to do anything until Comey speaks. Oh, the other thing is that Nunes invited Comey to speak at the time Sally Yates was supposed to speak.
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Nunes knows he’s intentionally stalling the committee. He’s the chair. If he wants a meeting, all he has to do is call a meeting. Instead, he’s maintaining a pretense that someone, anyone, else is at fault.
Nunes: They need to give us their witness list because we have no idea who they want to interview.
Well, Yates, Brennan, and Clapper—all of whom were already scheduled to appear—would be a helluva start.
But don’t worry. If Democrats don’t go along with every shifting requirement that Nunes throws at them, he has a simple solution.
Nunes: At the end of the day, we’re going to have an investigation with or without them, and if they want to participate, that’s fine.
Republicans have already established how they want to play this “investigation.”
Last Monday morning, shortly before the start of the hearing, a senior White House official told me, “You’ll see the setting of the predicate. That’s the thing to watch today.” He suggested that I read a piece in The Hill about incidental collection. The article posited that if “Trump or his advisors were speaking directly to foreign individuals who were the target of U.S. spying during the election campaign, and the intelligence agencies recorded Trump by accident, it’s plausible that those communications would have been collected and shared amongst intelligence agencies.”
Nunes’ cover story for his twin trips to the White House hits this same note: it had nothing to do with Russia and it’s all about protecting those poor Americans unfortunate enough to be “incidentally” caught up in intelligence operations.
On that topic, Republicans are happy to continue. As soon as Democrats agree to stop asking unfortunate questions.