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House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes has reportedly apologized to members of his committee for going first to the press and then to Donald Trump with claims that some of Trump’s communications had been “incidentally collected” by intelligence agencies. Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat on the committee, said Nunes also said he would provide them with the information he’s already provided to Trump, who is under investigation by the FBI, but Nunes isn’t making promises about how soon committee members can see the information. The problem is, even handing over the information immediately wouldn’t undo what Nunes already did:
"Basically what he has done is he has scuttled and put a cloud over his own investigation and he has become the subject -- he should be -- of an investigation," Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, told CNN's Chris Cuomo Thursday on "New Day." "It's a real problem."
"What he did was basically to go to the President, who is being investigated by the FBI and others and by the intelligence committee, to give them information."
Nunes had this to say:
“There was a lot going on yesterday and it was a judgment call on my part and that's—at the end of the day, sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you make the wrong one but you got to stick by the decisions you make,” Nunes said.
It would be more accurate to say “boy did I screw up; my judgment is terrible,” but Nunes may be perfectly happy with what he did.
He’s still talking like Donald Trump is his boss, not the subject of his investigation:
“I called down there [to the White House] and invited myself because I thought he needed to understand what I saw and that he needed to try to get that information because he has every right to see it,” he continued.
No, he doesn’t have every right to see it. The fact that you think that is one of the reasons you should not be in charge of investigating anything related to Trump. You know who did have every right to see it, though? Members of the House Intelligence Committee.
Elijah Cummings is right: Nunes himself should now be the subject of an investigation. And every day it becomes more clear why there needs to be a special prosecutor investigating Trump’s Russia ties.