The Trump–Russia story is full of deceptions, misstatements, evasions and outright lies. It’s a story where Trump himself spent years touting his “personal relationship” with Vladimir Putin, then denied it ever existed. Where Paul Manafort took in tens of millions to advance the Russian agenda, then said he never worked for them. Where multiple players in the Trump regime spent months cheering for leaks to spread the actions of a foreign government, then declared that their major concern is … leakers.
But nothing seems to encapsulate the sheer insanity of the moment like the conflict over House intelligence committee chair Devin Nunes. Nunes’ actions are so blatantly evasive, so in-your-face deceptive, so loaded with conflict of interest that even the most Russia-weary are shaken.
After days of chaos, one thing seems blindingly clear: Devin Nunes worked directly with the Trump White House to one end, to halt the progress of the House investigation.
Tom LoBianco, Sara Murray and Manu Raju at CNN:
The Trump administration is refusing to provide details Tuesday to who signed House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes into offices on White House grounds, as the House investigation into Russia's interference in the US elections is stalled, the victim of a partisan showdown.
Ryan Lizza at New Yorker
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. “We’ve been frozen,” Jim Himes, a Democratic representative from Connecticut who is a member of the Committee, said.
Trump’s team has determined that the only way to win this fight, is to never have this fight.
Karoun Demirjian at the Washington Post
The House Intelligence Committee’s probe of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, including potential ties between the Trump team and the Kremlin, is effectively on hold, after its chairman said the panel would not interview more witnesses until two intelligence chiefs return to Capitol Hill for a still-unscheduled private briefing.
Stalled. Frozen. Effectively on hold.
That’s the clear goal of Nunes’ otherwise inexplicable actions over the last week.
Some parts of the story are clearly not going as the Trump regime wanted. Nunes didn’t switch cars, ditch aides, and sneak into the White House on the signature of persons unknown because anyone wanted his paperback spy antics to be made public. It’s only because Nunes was caught skulking about that what little information we have became public.
But it’s clear that whatever the details of Nunes’ not-so-incognito trip, the driving motivation was simply panic. For whatever reason, Team Trump does not want the House investigation to move forward. Maybe it’s something Sally Yates was going to reveal. Maybe it’s the next installment from James Comey. Maybe it’s simply that other documents and testimony requested by the committee would allow any casual observer to insert tab B into slot A and see the connections that the White House is still desperately trying to cover.
For whatever reason, the obvious goal is to ground the committee and make it harmless.
More Ryan Lizza.
The White House and Nunes were clearly coordinating this strategy. A few days before the hearing, Trump seemed to offer a preview of it. In an interview on Fox News, the President said that he “will be submitting things” to Nunes’s committee “very soon,” and “perhaps speaking about this next week,” adding that “you’re going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks.”
But instead of providing public testimony, what Trump seems to be contributing is a big stack of secret Stop That.
Democrats are still trying to get the investigation moving forward, even if Nunes won’t agree to step aside.
Although Democrats want Nunes to step aside on the Russia investigation, they are raising a far more urgent cry for him to schedule the outstanding hearings — and quickly, so they can get the House investigation back on track.
“Schedule them both, and I think we can move forward,” committee member Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) said, referring to both the expected closed briefing with Comey and Rogers, and the canceled open hearing with Clapper, Brennan and Yates. “You see the unraveling of this committee happening overnight for no good reason. We have a responsibility to do this investigation.”
But while every Republican in Washington from Nunes to Sean Spicer, claims to want Sally Yates to testify and the investigation to carry on, the one thing that isn’t happening is scheduling a time for Yates to testify or taking steps to right the investigation.
Instead, Nunes has contrived a “lock” for any progress, in which he’s refusing to take the steps that FBI Director Comey says must be met before he’ll agree to more testimony, and Nunes refuses to schedule anything else until the committee hears from Comey.
Nunes told reporters Tuesday that he intended to reschedule Yates, Clapper and Brennan for an open hearing “as soon as we can get the questions answered from the FBI director.”
“That would be a logical first step,” Nunes added.
But he did not say when he expected Comey to return to the committee or whether he believed the FBI director could answer all his questions in one more closed-door meeting.
Devin Nunes isn’t moving. Because what he’s doing is exactly what the White House wants him to do.