Rep. Nunes is demeaning his office and failing the American people
FRED WERTHEIMER’S WEEKLY NOTE | JANUARY 4, 2018
“[Rep.] Nunes was a member of the Trump transition team and based on his performance as Intelligence Committee Chair, he apparently believes his job is to represent President Trump and not the House of Representatives or the American people.”
The Trump-Bannon war triggered by the publication of excerpts from Michael Wolff’s new book, Fire and Fury, and the chaos in the White House described in the book, reminds me of Quentin Tarantino’s movie, Reservoir Dogs. In the film, a bunch of gangsters completely botch a diamond robbery and end up getting shot and shooting each other.
While Trump and Bannon are dominating the news today, a less-covered event yesterday involved another step in the organized campaign by Trump supporters to raise red herrings and bogus claims to discredit Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation into Russian interference in our elections.
House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) reportedly said yesterday that the FBI and Justice Department have agreed to “provide the committee with access to all the documents and witnesses we have requested.” The Nunes request refers to the agencies’ alleged use of the so-called Steele dossier to open the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign in 2016.
According to The New York Times, however, the FBI investigation was not triggered by the dossier but by a foreign policy adviser to Trump, George Papadopoulos, who informed a top Australian diplomat that Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton. This information was passed on to American officials by the Australians and resulted in the FBI investigation being initiated.
Nunes was a member of the Trump transition team and based on his performance as Intelligence Committee Chair, he apparently believes his job is to represent President Trump and not the House of Representatives or the American people.
Let’s be clear what is going on here.
Congressional Republicans supporting Trump know they cannot undermine the credibility of Special Counsel Mueller, a person with an impeccable reputation for integrity. So instead they are trying in advance to undermine the credibility of whatever Mueller’s investigation turns up by throwing mud against the wall and hoping something sticks.
These Trump acolytes are demeaning their office and failing the American people.
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Fred Wertheimer is the Founder and President of Democracy 21, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to strengthen our democracy and ensure the integrity and fairness of government decisions and elections.
