Rep Devin Nunes held a presser this afternoon. It exposed his calamitous lack of intelligence which, in a sane world, would disqualify him from chairing the House Intelligence Committee. But in this era of republican politics, sanity has clearly lost its grip.
Nunes set out to explain how Trump’s “wire-tapp” story is both true and, at the same time, false. That’s a tall order for any word salad purveyor and frankly, Nunes just doesn’t have what it takes to pull it off. He started off okay but after that first sentence it was all downhill from there.
According to Cassandra Garrison at Reuters, Nunes began by declaring it’s ‘possible’ the Intelligence Community incidentally collected information about Americans associated with the Trump transition team.
Normal foreign surveillance is using approved FISA warrants to eavesdrop on foreigners. “Incidental collection” however, is not surveillance as John Schindler explains:
So, having had it explained to him by NSA Director Admiral Rogers as recently as this past Monday, Nunes is either terminally confused or…
While the ‘possible’ in Nunes’ opening statement was obviously meant to introduce a large dose of doubt — a key ingredient in obfuscation — Nunes then dropped that pretense and proceeded to obliterate all doubt in his desire to show off how much he really knows.
"I know there was incidental collection regarding the president-elect and his team."
Well there’s a very definite statement. He then added that “most” of this surveillance apparently happened during the transition in November, December, and January. Note the “most” which indicates he knows the investigation was not confined to these three months.
"I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show that the P-E and his team were...monitored"
According to Nunes, the reports contain “significant information” about Trump and his team. But what Nunes fails to say at this point is how such incidental collection of Trump and his team would have been possible. John Schindler explains:
Exactly. The only way such incidental collection would have come about is if Trump and his confederates spoke to Russians who are under surveillance.
So back to the collection of this “significant information”. Just in case this sounds like the IC has information it shouldn’t have, Nunes is eager to clarify:
“I believe it was all done legally,” he assures the media more than once.
In his tweet-by-tweet report, Eric Geller, cybersecurity reporter for Politico, records an astonishing disclosure by Nunes in the second of these two tweets:
Let’s take a moment to unpack this. Nunes says the White House was not aware of being monitored and evidently remained unaware of the circumstances of that “incidental surveillance”. Nunes therefore feels it is his duty to acquaint those in the White House with the facts of the matter as gleaned by Nunes from the intelligence reports he’s seen.
But first and foremost, Nunes is acquainting US media with the facts of the matter as gleaned by Nunes from the intelligence reports he’s seen.
So all this is legal and provided to him officially in reports submitted to his committee, right?
Now he is claiming unnamed sources? And he’s passing on their information to the media?
Zachary Keck from Harvard:
The response from John Schindler:
Thus Nunes has gone from being outraged by leaks conducted clandestinely to openly and publicly being the leaker himself. Perhaps to his mind there’s a difference if the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee calls a presser in order to leak confidential information? He certainly appeared blissfully unaware of the irony, hypocrisy and criminality of his extraordinary indiscretions.
But it may not be too long before he is enlightened. As Eric Geller reports:
He's hoping to talk to FBI Director Comey today to learn more.
He may learn instead that he’s no longer trusted with classified information but is fobbed off with superficial generalities. It’s doubtful though that Nunes would be able to tell the difference.
Nunes is demonstrating a very warped concept of priorities for a man in his position, especially when the chain of information should begin with his full committee and include the IC before the press and the White House. In fact it should exclude the press and the White House altogether. Oversight of the Executive does not imply keeping the Executive informed of everything you find out about them. Yet that is exactly what Nunes did.
To all intents and purposes, Nunes is deliberately trying to derail the IC investigation. To do so publicly is an extreme tactic and such extremes are the last resort of the desperate. His actions amount to explicit evidence of obstruction of justice and manifest collusion in a cover-up or worse. If he wasn’t a subject of investigation before he most certainly is now.