Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin has the right idea for diffusing the baseless charges leveled against the FBI by White House errand boy Rep. Devin Nunes in his secret “memo”—let’s expose it to the light of day and see how it holds up. Republicans are currently feasting on the innuendo that the memo uncovers some vast left-wing conspiracy at FBI. Seriously, some polling suggests that Republicans and even some independents appear to be buying that crap, cuz ya know, the same FBI that helped deliver the election to Donald Trump is now out to get him! Here’s Pocan’s statement:
As the Washington Post noted Wednesday, even though a Post-ABC poll last week found that a solid 50 percent of Americans now believe that Team Trump tried to collude with Russia to sway the election, support for the Mueller investigation has slipped slightly since November:
The overall percentage of Americans who believe that Russian efforts to interfere in the election are a serious matter that should be fully investigated has slipped from 64 percent in November to 58 percent now. That’s driven by a decline among Republicans from 28 percent to 21 percent and among independents from 63 percent to 54 percent.
The only way to fight the GOP disinformation campaign is with, well, actual information. Exposing what Nunes has included in the memo will allow Democrats to highlight what he didn’t include. Republicans are going to believe whatever they believe, but independents should have the benefit of actual scrutiny, and I’m plenty willing to bet that Nunes handled that memo about as well as he handled the “unmasking” debacle last year that forced him to kinda/sorta recuse himself from the Russia investigation.
... Mr. Nunes has not personally examined the underlying materials on which his memo is based, but rather had delegated that task to Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina. [Assistant attorney general Stephen] Boyd also wrote that the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, had personally asked to let the bureau see a copy of the memo, but had been rebuffed.
Right.