On this date one year ago, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” gave our original, long-overdue profile of the sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California’s 22nd District, Devin Nunes, who has rocketed up into our “must profile” list over the past two years after actions he took his role in the Trump transition team, as well as in the Republican House Intelligence Committee’s joke of an investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Trump transition team with Russia. Because it’s not so much that Rep. Nunes has made Trump look like a traitor, or that he’s made his campaign look like traitors, or that he’s made himself look like he was covering up his own potentially treasonous actions… no, Devin Nunes has drawn our scrutiny because he’s so goddamned transparent and incompetent of how to cover up a scandal, he may as well have been trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it.
Devin Nunes spent his high school days back in the 1990s rocking a mullet and passing the time like you would think a guy with a mullet would, then first fan for Congress at the age of 29 back in 2002, winning and spending six years quietly going about his business as most Bush-era Republicans, using patriotism after 9-11 as a shield against any criticism. Nothing too interesting about him, through that stretch.
Of course, Rep. Nunes’ tone changed around 2009, in the face of Democrats having control over the White House, Senate, and House, when during the debate over the soon-to-be-passed Affordable Care Act, he spitefully claimed it was bringing back “ghosts of communism”, which we’re sure in no way was any kind of hyperbole about democratic socialism. Fast forward a few years to February of 2014, and the Congressman was also going “all-in” on climate change denial, during one of the worst droughts in the history of California, no less, when he declared “global warming is nonsense”.
Other than that, Nunes spent the second half of the Obama administration wasting taxpayer dollars so that conspiracy theory nuts could bay at the moon over theories about the attack on an American-controlled compound in Benghazi, but after years of promising some clear links to wrongdoing by President Obama or Hillary Clinton, Rep. Nunes and his GOP-controlled House Intelligence Committee investigation ended up having to debunk most of their own theories.
Still, all of that partisanship brought Devin Nunes to the attention of the Trump campaign, and he was quickly brought on as a member of the Trump transition team. Only days after the inauguration, Nunes was entrenched enough with the secrets of Team Trump and on their side that he was backing his Muslim ban, in spite of the fact that, y’know, it was unconstitutional as f*** and most national security experts thought it actually would make foreign relations far, far worse.
Less than a month into the Trump administration, though, the whispers of links between the Trump campaign and the Trump transition team trying to set up secret meetings with Russians were growing to a claxon alarm… and Devin Nunes, the man who only a few years earlier was whining about healthcare reform bringing back “the ghosts of Communism” was suddenly referring to the reports from the FBI, CIA, and others in the intelligence community as a “Witchhunt” or a new “McCarthyism”. It’s only apparently Nunes who’s allowed to fear-monger about the commies, you see, and when his own party literally has their candidate linked to the leftovers of the KGB to swing the American elections that it’s dirty pool to talk about it.
And let’s be honest, it’s around March of 2017 where Nunes done f***ed up when it came to being a covert operative trying to help out the Trump administration and himself. As the great John Oliver summed it up, Devin Nunes managed to become a key player in “Stupid Watergate”, where if Watergate were happening again, but everyone involved was very, very stupid. Nunes was caught leaking classified information found during the intelligence community’s investigation into the Trump campaign and Trump transition team directly back to the White House and then blurting it out to the public outside the White House to frame public opinion in Trump’s favor. Similarly to how Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from the Department of Justice’s inquiries into Trump/Russia because of his own involvement, Nunes was forced to step aside after leaking classified information to the White House, then the public.
Except, Devin Nunes is completely full of s*** that he’s no longer tainting the House Intelligence committee’s investigation, especially when he’s caught by the media sending his own investigators on taxpayer’s dime to the United Kingdom to try and find Christopher Steele, author of the Steele Dossier. (Note: They failed, using House Intelligence Committee position to taint investigation and attack the FBI investigators.) As time goes by, though, Nunes has become less and less subtle about putting his thumb on the scale, moving on to actually outright talk of “corruption” he’s imagining is happening at the Bureau, trying to throw up smokescreens to distract from the Trump/Russia investigation like say, demanding an investigation Hillary Clinton over the conspiracy theory Uranium One in December of 2017, because no Republican would enjoy giving a Christmas gift to their party like continuing to waste taxpayer dollars harassing Hillary Clinton for daring to be both a Democrat and a woman seeking the presidency. and of course, choosing the FBI’s surveillance of Carter Page, the most suspicious Russian operative in the entire Trump/Russia operation to be the hill to die on, by writing a memo about it, saying it was full of “shocking revelations” but once it was released, would do little but make Nunes look like even more of an incompetent boob.
By February of 2018, Congressman Nunes was caught funding his own alternative news site to try and manipulate what “news” was being spread about the Trump/Russia investigation, and that in no way mirrored how the intelligence community reported on how the 2016 election was tainted by Russian bots spreading those kinds of stories, right? It’s dragged on now to where Nunes has started threatening senior members of the FBI and Department of Justice with impeachment for not revealing all of the information they’ve gathered during their investigation of the links between Trump and Russia (when by now, Nunes is supposed to have recused himself anyway, and has already shown he’d leak classified information for partisan reasons) and he’s been left with no other option but to go on Fox & Friends to claim that the Trump campaign was “set up” by the FBI.
It’s almost as if Devin Nunes has some personal stake invested in the matter, you know? Like, more than the average Republican who will just look the other way, Nunes seems to want to outright taint the investigation and declare it over… like how he might in some way be implicated in illegal activity because of things he did as a member of the Trump transition…
California’s 22nd District has a +8 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, and in 2018, he only managed 53% at the polls. Nunes has not ceased has flagrant attempts to prop up the Trump administration:
- August 28th, 2018: Nunes travels to the United Kingdom, looking to convince British intelligence to help him prove the Steele dossier is inaccurate and only succeeding in embarrassing himself. British intelligence tell him to kindly f*** right off.
- October 1st, 2018: An investigation by journalist Ryan Lizza reveals that Devin Nunes not only doesn’t have a dairy farm in his district, but it’s in Iowa… and he employs undocumented immigrant workers on that farm.
- January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Nunes voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
- February 28th, 2019: Devin Nunes votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
- March 14th, 2019: Rep. Nunes votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
- March 19th, 2019: Nunes files a pathtetically frivolous lawsuit against Twitter, outraged that two parody accounts named “Devin Nunes’ Mom” and “Devin Nunes’ Cow” mocked him, and he goes on conservative media to insist he also has been “shadow-banned from Twitter”, when he hasn’t.
- March 27th, 2019: Rep. Nunes abruptly calls for the resignation of Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, because he apparently can’t stand to be in the minority in Congress and see anyone actually holding the Trump administration accountable for its rampant corruption.
- April 3rd, 2019: Nunes panics as the Mueller Report is released to Attorney General William Barr, and goes on FOX News to try and misrepresent facts with Sean Hannity and call it a “dossier” and try to conflate it with the Steele Dossier.
- April 4th, 2019: Devin Nunes is one of 158 Republicans who choose to vote against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
- April 8th, 2019: Rep. Nunes continues filing frivolous lawsuits, this time against McClatchy News, because he doesn’t like that they have the nerve to report facts about him.
- June 4th, 2019: Nunes votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
Devin Nunes is not your “average” Republican, he’s the sea-worthy douche-canoe using what power he has to prop up in incompetent racist s***heel in the White House. And sooner or later, the voters of his district might want to realize how much he honestly doesn’t care about anything that isn’t a rich Republican living in it, even if it jeopardizes the very national security of our country, and our democratic elections.
One Year Ago, June 17th, 2018: Devin Nunes (CA)… Original Profile
Two Years Ago, June 17th, 2017: Pat McDonough (MD)… 2017 Update
Three Year Ago, June 17th, 2016: Pat McDonough (MD)… 2016 Update
Four Years Ago, June 17th, 2015: Pat McDonough (MD)… Original Profile