Until the last couple of weeks, few people had any reason to run into the name Devin Nunes. Nunes’ storied political career consists of being appointed a state agriculture commissioner by George W. Bush, then moving from there to California’s newly created Republican-heavy 22nd District. That’s it. His major attachment is to big agriculture, where he never met a pesticide he didn’t like. He wrote a book claiming that environmentalists are “Maoists.” He’s also an unabashed climate change denier who says “global warming is nonsense” and drought is a manufactured crisis. He annually tries to pass legislation requiring more water to be diverted to big farms. It never passes.
Because Republicans are so serious about terrorism, it only makes sense that this inexperienced ag-major who thinks environmentalists are the greatest threat, should be heading up the House Intelligence Committee. And even there he managed to remain mostly invisible until the last few weeks, when Americans in great numbers have looked toward Devin Nunes with the unified thought of … WTF?
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee was on his way to an event in Washington late Tuesday when the evening’s plans abruptly changed. After taking a brief phone call, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) swapped cars and slipped away from his staff, congressional officials said. He appears to have used that unaccounted-for stretch of time to review classified intelligence files brought to his attention by sources he has said he will not name.
Nunes receives a phone call, hops out of an Uber at a stoplight, and disappears for hours. He next shows up in Paul Ryan’s office, spewing a tale of intelligence connections that may lead to Trump. After talking to Ryan, Nunes scurries off to inform Trump that Trump is in the FBI’s cross-hairs. Then, after doing his best to wreck any possible investigation underway, Nunes holds a press conference. Nowhere in this mess does he consider briefing the other members of the intelligence committee or that he’s revealing confidential information about an ongoing investigation. Hey, it’s not as if it involved something serious. Like PETA.
Who called Nunes? What did they tell him? Where did he go before meeting Ryan? And, seriously, WTF?
Nunes’ role as the head of House Intelligence has always been in direct conflict with another of his positions.
Nunes, 43, has said he is committed to leading an impartial inquiry into Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election, and search for any evidence of coordination with Trump or his associates. But Nunes, who served as an adviser on Trump’s transition team, has also at times used his position as chair of the intelligence committee in ways that seem aligned with the interests of the White House.
Ways that “seem aligned” include Nunes repeatedly appearing on television and in print to “knock down” stories of Trump—Russia connections, even though some of those connections later turned out to be based on a lot more evidence than Nunes admitted. It also includes Nunes’ incredible performance when James Comey appeared before the committee, in which Nunes asked not a single question about the supposed topic of the hearing, but tried to get Comey to say that leakers were the real problem.
Nunes’s latest move came Friday, when he made a flurry of announcements that on the surface signaled promising new investigative paths, including an agreement to hear testimony from Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. But to Democrats, Nunes’s actions again seemed to show the hidden agenda of the White House.
What makes it a hidden agenda? Well, to start with Nunes, acting alone, again made a series of deals with the White House, and Nunes again called a press conference before bothering to tell the other members of his committee what the conference was about, or that he had been discussing testimony with members of the Trump regime, in private. That hidden agenda.
And there’s one other little thing that Nunes slipped into his press conference without bothering to tell anyone beforehand:
Most immediately, Nunes canceled an open hearing that had been scheduled for Tuesday with former senior officials who have battled Trump. Among them is former acting attorney general Sally Q. Yates, who was fired by Trump; former director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., who publicly disputed Trump’s wiretapping claim; and former CIA director John Brennan, who has said that Trump should “be ashamed of himself” over his behavior toward U.S. spy agencies.
It may seem like Devin Nunes is using the power of his position with the committee to stifle anyone who might say anything embarrassing about Trump, and using his inside connections at the White House to discuss in advance how Trump associates might testify to their advantage, and using his intelligence connections to warn his friends instead of search for the truth, and doing his best to sabotage any general narrative that begins to emerge in the press. It seems like that, because it is like that.
And by the way: Who called Devin Nunes, what did they say, and where did he go before meeting with Ryan? We’re seriously at the point where Nunes should move from being the leader of an investigation, to being the primary subject.
In fact, it’s very easy to believe that what caused Nunes to leap from that car is hearing his own name turn up on the FBI radar in relation to a meeting between Michael Flynn and his Turkish clients.
House Intelligence Committee Congressman, Devin Nunes, a Republican heavyweight, also attended the breakfast.
Was it an investigation of Flynn that cause Nunes to go screaming onto the sidewalks? In any case, it now appears that the go to Ryan, then go to Trump narrative may not be an accurate timeline for Nunes’ lost afternoon.
It has been something of a mystery, the whereabouts of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes on the day before his announcement that he saw information suggesting that communications of then-President-elect Donald Trump and his advisers may have been swept up in surveillance of other foreign nationals.
One source told CNN that Nunes, a California Republican, was seen on the White House grounds the day before his announcement. In a phone interview, Nunes confirmed to CNN that he was on the White House grounds that day -- but he said he was not in the White House itself. (Other buildings, including the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, are on the same grounds.)
No one has confirmed just where Nunes went or who he talked to, but it seems a fair bet he wasn’t wandering the grounds as a test for the Secret Service.
One thing is certain—Devin Nunes can no longer even pretend to lead any sort of reasonable investigation.