Ha. Congressional Republicans wanted to use their retreat to promote their tax giveaway to corporations and the wealthy and rebrand their efforts to hurt low-income families, but instead, every time they talked to reporters they got swarmed with questions about the Devin Nunes-White House memo attacking the FBI. Efforts to pivot were for the most part unsuccessful:
The rank and file and leadership alike were peppered with questions about the memo drafted by aides to House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes. Fully seven out of the nine questions asked during a joint news conference with Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell centered on it. Reporters grilled them on the FBI director’s opposition to unveiling the document and whether they thought Nunes, a Trump-loyalist, should remain chairman. [...]
Ryan changed the subject quickly: “Look, the tax cuts are working.”
Ryan wasn’t the only one trying to pivot to a different topic. Some policy-focused reporters shouted at Ryan and McConnell as they exited the room, begging them to take questions about the GOP agenda. At one point, House Armed Service Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) — who came to the media center to brief reporters on defense issues — had to tell the press that he’s not an expert on the sensitive surveillance matter at hand.
What’s more, even Senate Republicans have some questions and concerns about the way House Republicans, led by Ryan, are handling the memo:
Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Senate Republican, said House Republicans should allow the Senate Intelligence Committee to view the memo before it's made public — and that Republicans should release a Democratic rebuttal memo to show both sides of the argument.
“It would be helpful,” Thune said. “I think that [Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard] Burr would like to see it and hasn’t been able to yet.”
Politico’s Rachael Bade and Burgess Everett describe all of this as House Republicans “tripping over their own feet,” but I might have said they tripped over a different body part. Who could have predicted that working with the White House to undermine the special counsel’s investigation by attacking the FBI through cherrypicked classified information and using a Russian bot-led campaign to get your own fake memo released might become a problem?