To properly tell tonight’s story, we need to get into the wayback machine for a minute… Buckle up, folks!
OK, so do you remember, last March, way before the national conversation turned to porn stars and shitholes, when Donald Trump informed us that he’d been illegally “wiretapped” by Obama? And do you remember how, in the wake of his having said it, everyone was starting to ridicule him, demanding evidence to back up his serious claim of felony wrongdoing? Well, in case you don’t, here’s a clip from something that I posed at the time.
…So, as this controversy was swirling, and people everywhere were demanding that Trump back up his baseless claims that his phones had been tapped by Obama, (Congressman Devin) Nunes was summoned to the White House, where, according to him, he was shown evidence by a still unnamed source, that conversations at Trump Tower had in fact been taped. And he shared all of this the following morning at a very odd White House press conference, which had been set up without the knowledge of the other members of the House Intelligence Committee (which Nunes heads), giving Trump the opportunity to then follow up by saying that he felt vindicated.
So, here, to sum things up, is how things when down… FBI Director James Comey and NSA head Michael Rogers testified under oath before the House Intelligence Committee that there was not a shred of evidence to support Trump’s claim that Obama had order an illegal wire tap on his phones. Later that evening, Nunes, who, coincidentally, served on the Trump transition team, was called to the White House, where, according to him, he was shown evidence of surveillance, allowing Trump to then say that he felt vindicated. And, it should be noted, Nunes still hasn’t either shared that evidence with his fellow members of the House Intelligence Committee, or, for that matter, told anyone who it was that shared this evidence with him on the grounds of the White House. And, as if that weren’t enough, Nunes also cancelled the testimony of (Sally) Yates, who, according to Representative Adam Schiff, was prepared to testify about the Flynn “cover-up”, perhaps referring to the fact that Trump’s National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, wasn’t removed from office the instant Yates made the administration aware of the fact that he’d been lying about the extent of his relationship with Putin’s government, opting instead to keep him in his position as head of national security until evidence of Flynn’s illegal activities was leaked to the press by individuals within the intelligence community.
So, not only did Nunes give Trump some degree of political cover, publicly offering the possibility that Trump was at least partially correct when he suggested that his phones had been tapped, but, more importantly, he kept Yates from the stand, where she would have testified to the extent of Flynn’s relationship with Russia, and the fact that Trump, when made aware of the situation, chose to do nothing.
Thankfully, the mainstream press and politicians of all stripes are beginning to turn on Nunes, demanding that he be removed from the Russia hearings… “He shouldn’t be anywhere near this investigation, let alone leading it,” Representative Eric Swalwell said of Nunes on MSNBC this afternoon. “This,” he added, “is what it looks like when you’re covering up a crime.” And Representative Adam Schiff, the committee’s ranking Democrat, came out yesterday and said that Nunes should recuse himself. “We’ve reached the point, after the events of this week, where it would be very difficult to maintain the credibility of the investigation if the chairman did not recuse himself from matters involving either the Trump campaign or the Trump transition team of which he was a member,” Schiff told CNN. And it’s not just the Democrats. Republican Walter Jones, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, today told reporters that he too thinks Nunes should step down…
Well, as you might recall, once the House Ethics Committee issued a statement saying that they were “determined to investigate” allegations that “Nunes may have made unauthorized disclosures of classified information, in violation of House Rules, law, regulations, or other standards of conduct,” the Congressman recused himself from anything having to do with he Russia investigation.
But, here’s the thing. He never really stopped working on behalf of the Trump team to slow down the Russia investigation… Which brings us to today, and the #ReleaseTheMemo campaign.
Nunes is now demanding that a memo authored by staffers in his office under his direction be released over the objections of the FBI. Here, in case you missed it yesterday, is the FBI’s public statement, which warns that, through “material omissions of fact,” the Nunes document, if made public, could do grave harm.
And, word is that Chris Wray, the current Director of the FBI, and Trump’s third since taking office, could very well quit if this Nunes memo is released.
Trump, though, according to news this evening, has apparently made the decision to release the memo over the objections of the intelligence community. As for why he would do this, and perhaps jeopardize elements of a federal case, CNN is reporting that the President believes it will help prove that the FBI is out to get him. According to the report, Trump, in recent days, “has told friends he believes the memo would expose bias within the agency’s top ranks and make it easier for him to argue the Russia investigations are prejudiced against him, according to two sources.”
As for what’s in this mysterious memo, my sense, based on the reports that I’ve read, is that Nunes cherrypicked data from various intelligence reports, especially as it related to a FISA warrant authorizing surveillance of Trump advisor Carter Page, and then packaged it into a memo in such a way that it might give the impression that the FBI had abused their power on behalf of the Democrats. To give you a sense of how this is being framed in the pro-Trump media, here’s a quote from the Fox News webpage: “(The) Obama Administration ‘weaponized’ the Justice Department and intelligence community in order to try seizing control over the election.”
Here, from the Washington Post, is a bit more detail as to what we think is likely in the three-and-a-half-page Nunes memo.
…The memo apparently argues that this (FISA) application, submitted in secret to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, included information from a dossier of reports compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele on behalf of the firm Fusion GPS — a company that had been hired by an attorney for the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign.
The implication is apparently that partisan information was used to request surveillance of a Trump campaign aide when it shouldn’t have been. This argument — assuming it’s the argument made by the memo! — is contingent on a lot of shaky assumptions, several of which were parsed by Orin Kerr at Lawfare. For example: Steele’s background made him a credible source to the FBI, and judges are used to considering motivation when determining whether to grant a warrant.
Assuming, that is, that it’s fair to consider Steele a biased source. There’s no indication that Steele knew who the client was for whom he was indirectly working. In his testimony before the Senate last year, Fusion GPS’s Glenn Simpson said that Steele was told only to “see if you can find out what Donald Trump’s been doing on these trips to Russia.”
But the broader question that’s important to answer is if there was other evidence, besides what Steele provided, that might have prompted the FBI to seek a warrant to surveil Page’s activities. After all, if there were 40 pieces of evidence cited, one of which came from Steele, even if Steele’s evidence were somehow inappropriate to include (again, not necessarily a fair assumption) there would still be 39 other reasons that a warrant might be justified…
It’s complicated, I know. The gist, however, is this. Republicans loyal to Trump are suggesting that the FBI is essentially an arm of the Democratic Party, and, as such, sought to target the Trump campaign. Given that, in the opinion of many, it was an FBI announcement about the reopening of an investigation into Hillary Clinton that cost the former Secretary of State the election, this is laughable on its face, but apparently this is the best narrative that Trump’s team of conmen and fascists could come up with. So, according to this narrative, Hillary paid former British spy and Russia expert Christopher Steele to write a fake dossier, which she then handed off to friendly forces within the FBI, who used it to justify a full-scale, deep state attack against Donald Trump and his associates.
To believe this, of course, you’d have to believe 1. that the FBI is a liberal entity, which it’s not, 2. that Steele, who once ran the Russia desk for MI6, would sacrifice his professional credibility for Hillary Clinton, which he wouldn’t, and 3. that the investigation didn’t begin with warnings from the Australians and the Dutch, as we now know that it did. And, of course, you’d have to ignore the fact that the dossier was first commissioned by the conservative Washington Free Beacon… Oh, and, on the other side of the equation, you’d have to forget all the very real evidence we’ve seen of shady ties between the Trump camp and the Russians… And, of course, you’d have to be believe that the FBI was so inept, that, instead of accusing Trump publicly of collusion during the campaign, when it might have actually helped sway the outcome of the election, they waited until he actually won before they got serious about helping the Clinton campaign.
OK, well it looks as though, while I was writing the above, Trump has gotten himself on Twitter and laid the whole thing out for his base, explaining how he’s the victim of a deep state, government plot.
So that’s pretty much where things now stand. Nunes is attempting to muddy the waters by putting this memo out, and Paul Ryan and the Republican establishment is allowing him to do it, knowing full well that the information within the memo could jeopardize national security.
So here’s how this will play out… The Republicans will release the memo. The press will jump on a few select quotes, and explore whether or not there might be something to the Republican claims, as they did last week with claims that a “secret society” of anti-Trump agents exists within the FBI. And, eventually, people who want the truth to be known will start leaking the classified context that supported the warrant application against Carter Page. And, in the process, we’ll send a few weeks spinning our wheels. But, here’s the thing. The Mueller probe won’t stop. While this may seem like a setback from where we are, the wheels of justice are going to keep right on turning. So, take some comfort in that, OK?
And, when it’s all said and done, and all the #ReleaseTheMemo drama is over, and all the “bombshells” that we’d been promised turn out be duds, we’ll be left with the following story… A FISA court found there to be enough evidence against Trump associate Carter Page to issue a surveillance warrant.
Well, as you might expect, the Democrats are demanding that Nunes immediately be kicked off the House Intelligence Committee for this most recent stunt. Describing Nunes as a “national security risk,” Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi said that for “ignoring concerns from the FBI & DOJ to advance a conspiracy theory,” the Congressman should be removed immediately. And that sentiment was followed up shortly after by Senator Chuck Schumer, who likewise demanded that Nunes be removed as head of the Intelligence Committee.
Oh, and the retired directors of the CIA and FBI are both weighing in as well.
And so it begins. We start this final chapter with Congressional Republicans circling the wagons, putting the safety of the nation at risk, and hoping against all odds that they can somehow save the criminal enterprise we know as the Trump administration from the inevitable. The next few weeks should be very interesting, my friends… Good luck.
