For some reason that we will all still pretend to not understand, Rep. Devin Nunes continues to be very, very insistent in requesting details of a U.S. intelligence source involved in the Russia probe. Now there's yet another last-ditch effort to prevent that unmasking by top officials—but it's not likely to appease the single-minded Nunes.
In a late Tuesday phone call with top GOP lawmakers, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein offered to meet with key House members at the Justice Department on Thursday to discuss the issue. But they stopped short of promising full access to the material they're requesting, the sources said. [...]
The lawmakers spoke to Kelly amid a last-ditch blitz by the Justice Department and FBI to convince the White House that sharing the information the Republicans were seeking would jeopardize national security.
At this point is is evident Devin Nunes sincerely does not care whether the disclosure would jeopardize national security, and Kelly and Rosenstein both likely know that. The Justice Department has flatly warned Nunes and House Republican leadership that any leak of the requested materials could result in the "loss of human lives", among other consequences; Nunes and allies aren't backing off.
Nunes is also publicly lying about the request he's making. As in, he is flat out lying, according to CNN.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the FBI and national intelligence officials warned the White House last week that information requested by Nunes could put a confidential US intelligence source at risk, but Nunes and other House Republicans have since claimed that his document request did not refer to a specific individual.
However, CNN reviewed a copy of the non-classified appendix to last week's subpoena, which directly requests "all documents referring or related to the individual referenced in Chairman Nunes' April 24, 2018 letter to Attorney General Sessions."
Hey, so he’s a liar. Go figure.
Among the justifications Nunes' fellow Republicans are using as to why seeking out this individual's identity and actions would not endanger his or her life: the claim that such information would never, ever leak out of the same House panel that's been leaking like a colander from the beginning of the Russia investigation to the present:
"That assumes we will immediately turn and leak that information, which would jeopardize potentially sources and methods," [Rep. Tom Rooney] said, pushing back at the notion "that we have a cavalier attitude about such things and we will just release it."
That is exactly what you would do! It's exactly what the committee has been doing all along! It is literally the reason Devin Nunes has become, here in 2018, a household name!
Dear God, these people. First House Republicans release a pseudo-report claiming that by golly, they couldn't find evidence of collusion between Americans and Russian espionage anywhere, now they've moved on to an effort to expose just who in the intelligence community found out about these things. If Putin himself isn't paying House Republicans, he probably should be. It's hard to find anyone in the world as devoted to shuttering the Russia investigation as this set of House Republicans have been.
