On Thursday Nunes fluttered his very own Russia report in the face of Fiona Hill, a renowned Russia expert who has not only served as the NSC’s top resource on Eastern Europe but written a book on the psychology of Vladimir Putin. Nunes was just one of a series of Republicans who engaged in a epic, tag-team man-splaining effort designed to shield the fact that, yes, absolutely, Republicans on the committee have been working to support a conspiracy theory explicitly designed to exonerate Russia of involvement in the 2016 campaign.
Republicans have certainly done their share to uphold the other conspiracy theory that Trump pushed by repeatedly bringing up Joe or Hunter Biden as if there was some misdeed to be investigated. But now it’s apparent that Nunes did more than just bring talking points for his CT game. Nunes was actually on the ground a whole year ago, working to provide Trump with precisely the false attacks he wanted to hurt Biden’s potential as a candidate.
On Friday, an attorney for Lev Parnas—one of two now indicted partners of Giuliani who illegally funneled money from foreign sources into Republican campaigns—reported that Parnas would testify that Nunes went to Vienna in December 2018 to meet with Shokin.
And that’s not the end of it. Parnas, whose role in the Ukraine scheme was helping Giuliani make contact with Ukrainians willing to play along with the schemes to finger Biden and Hillary Clinton, apparently served the same role for Nunes. His attorney states that he put Nunes in touch with multiple sources, not just Shokin. It’s unclear at this point just how many trips Nunes made, or how many sources he tapped in an effort to support these disproven claims.
All the time Nunes has been sitting in the inquiry, pretending to disbelief about Trump soliciting foreign officials to interfere in the upcoming election, Nunes knew that he had done the same thing, with the same people. It wasn’t just Rudy Giuliani acting as Trump’s agent in Ukraine to disrupt policy and collect disinformation that could be used to upset a U.S. election — it was Devin Nunes.
Maybe it’s time to remember that those Russia reports Nunes was waving around on Thursday aren’t really valuable for the whitewash they provide when it comes to Russian interference, but they are valuable as reminders that the tactics he used in authoring that Trump-exoneration forced Nunes to step down from his role heading the Russia investigation in the House and face an ethics investigation.
In that case, a Republican majority Ethics Committee eventually slapped a hasty approval on Nunes’ actions, even though Nunes was lying to the press, and to other members of the committee, about the secret sources of supposed information. The truth was that Nunes was working directly with the Trump team to undermine and sideline the investigation, resulting in a report whose purpose had nothing to do with finding the truth.
The House inquiry needs to convene for another day of hearings, where Nunes can diddle with his phone on the other side of the table for a change, and explain how he was pretending to only investigate something he was actively engaged in doing personally. Then he can go back to the ethics committee — and it won’t be a cake walk this time.
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