The Daily Beast is reporting that Devin Nunes, the Republican representative and former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, is on Robert Mueller’s radar for a breakfast meeting that included Michael Flynn and a number of foreign officials. At the time of the meeting, Nunes was on the Trump transition team. The breakfast is reportedly getting a close look from the special counsel’s office as part of a broader investigation into the record levels of foreign money that poured into Donald Trump’s inauguration fund and whether that money constitutes plain old-fashioned bribery.
In his time chairing the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes failed to call dozens of witnesses, blocked every subpoena for witnesses who refused to cooperate, and refused to request a single document. During the investigation, he spent a lot of time jumping out of cars, selectively spilling enough classified information to get himself hauled in front of the Ethics Committee, creating a memo full of lies, and generally putting in a bid to be the least believable man in Washington. During the ethics investigation, Nunes semi-recused himself, but never gave up his hold on the ability to quash every single requested subpoena. Then, months sooner than expected, Nunes abruptly announced that the House committee was done with its “investigation.” Republicans then rushed out a completely partisan document that gave Trump cover for his “no collusion” claims, without so much as showing the report to Democrats on the committee before it was published.
Nunes’ behavior throughout the whole affair can only be described as bizarre. It wasn’t just that he leapt from a moving Uber; Nunes also conspired with Michael Flynn protege Ezra Cohen-Watnick and White House attorney Michael Ellis to create a non-existent “unmasking” scandal, and then conducted a series of hectic back-and-forth press conferences separated only by a visit to Paul Ryan’s office to discuss … we still don’t know what they discussed. And after beating his chest concerning the need to protect sources, Nunes turned around and genuinely endangered agents in the field over the objections of both the FBI and DOJ.
In short, Nunes has acted like a lunatic throughout the investigation. So the idea that he is himself neck-deep in the whole thing and taking every possible step to burn down the FBI before it gets around to him seems like completely reasonable, and expected, news.
Not only did Nunes attend the fundraiser with Flynn and the Turkish representative, but he organized and chaired other fundraisers for Trump’s inauguration. And as Nunes’ hometown paper, the Fresno Bee, reported last year, Nunes hasn’t just been oddly supportive of Trump. He’s also been very, very upset that people ever started checking into Michael Flynn.
Nunes spewed outrage over the idea that the FBI recorded a phone call to Flynn, an action for which the agency had sought, and obtained, a warrant. He told reporters, “I expect for the FBI to tell me what is going on, and they better have a good answer. The big problem I see here is that you have an American citizen who had his phone calls recorded.” But oddly enough, the FBI did not have to ask Nunes’ permission to do its job.
Was Nunes worried more about someone listening to Flynn, or was he worried that he might have also been on the line? Since Flynn has just gotten a serious reminder that full cooperation means full cooperation, Nunes could now be getting worried about just what Robert Mueller has learned direct from the source.
“The fact that the prosecutors are looking at this is part of the whole question of the Trump way of doing business—how it may have given all kinds of foreign powers inroads into the White House,” said Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “These cases are important because they involve possible elements of corruption and could tell us more about the special physics of Trumpworld influence which looks more like what you get in a banana republic.”
The breakfast meeting also included representatives from Saudi Arabia, which was Trump’s extremely odd choice for his first trip outside the U.S. as president. Did Mohammed bin Salman get that visit after sliding a big check through Nunes and Flynn?
In any case, there are few people who would be look better in an orange jumpsuit than Devin Nunes.