House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes called a press conference a little while ago to announce that he intended to commit a blatant act of criminal obstruction of justice with respect to the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of Trump and Trump associates’ connections to the Russians’ interference in our presidential election. Nunes began by declaring that President-Elect Trump’s personal communications may have been intercepted during the Transition due to “incidental collection” during an unrelated, completely legal and FISA-approved investigation.
He then said that the potential surveillance was not related to Russia, that it wasn’t clear that it was collected at Trump Tower and that he was “alarmed by it.”
He further stated that he had advised House Speaker Paul Ryan of his findings and that he was traveling to the White House this afternoon to share with them information that had been provided to him by the FBI in a classified setting for the purposes of advancing a congressional investigation into potential crimes committed by the people he will be meeting in the White House.
Nunes also revealed that “he discovered the potential surveillance of Trump himself while reviewing intelligence reports,” but he did not divulge that he kept his discovery from the Democrats on the committee who “appeared blindsided by Nunes’ announcement.”
[Democrat] Rep. Jim Himes [of Connecticut] said he spoke with ranking Democratic member Adam Schiff, and that neither of them are familiar with the evidence Nunes is citing.
To be clear, “Nunes said the collection included Trump transition officials and that it happened after the election. He said he could not say whether it meant that Trump was “spied on.””
“I’m not going to get into legal definitions.” he said.
When Nunes arrives at the White House and begins sharing information about which Transition officials were captured on “incidental surveillance,” he will be committing what appears to be an obvious crime.
He claims that the surveillance is unrelated to Russia, and that may be his only criminal defense. He better hope that it will stand up in court. His press conference performance was a dishonest attempt to suggest that perhaps Trump wasn’t completely wrong when he said that Trump Tower was wiretapped at the behest of President Obama. He couldn’t assert either of those things but he made it seem like he had evidence pointing in that direction.
And his failure to share this information with the Democrats or notify them that he would be holding the press conference shows just how disingenuous his “alarm” really is.
But it’s his intent to share classified investigatory information with the subjects of a counterintelligence (and potentially criminal) probe that constitutes a crime.
He must not be very bright.
And he’s just destroyed his own committee’s investigation.
>>he’s just destroyed his own committee’s investigation.
which he was always going to find some way to do.
if you thought the republicans were going to investigate anything, I don’t understand why you thought so.
He’s talking now
Listening to Fox News
MSNBC is now saying he just disclosed who was being investigated with a FISA warrant. And he deliberately wanted this to be on TV. Schiff hadn’t even heard of it yet.
And will he actually face any penalty whatsoever (criminal, civil or political) for this? Color me skeptical.
Depends. What are the statutes of limitations on the possible crimes he’s committed?
We don’t prosecute torture. He’ll be fine.
What has he to fear? That he’ll be prosecuted by the Confederate White Power Justice Department? That Congress will do anything about it? WHo is possibly in a position to force the use of a special prosecutor?
After all this is only treasonous collusion with foreign governments to steal the US presidential election.
Let’s get some perspective here, folks, it’s not like it’s getting a blow job in the Oval office!!!
It seems Marcy agrees with you about “felonious leaking” BooMan:
btw Nunes has heard of neither Carter Page nor Stone (as of a day or so ago), or so he says
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/843947131241226240
Nunes himself was part of the Trump transition team.
yes, he’s explaining why he’s caught on tape, as it were
Remember when it was a shocking breach of classified information protocol for Hillary Clinton’s staff to discuss a New York Times article over regular email containing information that other parts of the US government considered classified?
Some people in the FBI were really agitated about this.
I’m a little slow. How does this “destroy” the investigation?
Hard to obtain classified information from respective agencies when your co-chairman is blabbing about it at a press conference.
But does that “destroy” the investigation or merely impede it (in a way that can be countered and/or overcome?
Look at it from the FBIs viewpoint. You want to talk to me about what, exactly? Sure and now let me tell you what we have here. ( not)
Right. Why would the FBI give you anything if you immediately gave it to the persons that may be the subject of the investigation?
I’m slower. What’s the headline? “Republican Congressman Undermines Republican FBI’s Investigation of Republican President?”
Schiff just said there is more than circumstantial evidence in the Russian investigation.
There will have to be payback. Democrats don’t think in these terms, but we forgave and forgot Iran/Contra, Bush admin crimes and lord knows what else. When we get power again, if the statute of limitations is not expired, we must go after Nunes. No accepting that “the nation has moved on”. No “letting bygones be bygones”. Often you do need to forgive or overlook past wrongs, so that addressing them does not undermine current situations, but the Democrats have done this so often that the Republicans do not ever worry about repercussions for anything they do coming from our side. That has to change.
Yes, you are absolutely right. No more “look forward” after this treasonous attempt to derail his own committee’s investigation. What we are seeing now makes Watergate look like chump change.
BTW, I quite agree with Booman that Nunes isn’t very bright. He comes across as a complete idiot doing this … but that’s no defense.
well, frying pan/ fire
Ahem:
US Officials: Info suggests Trump associates may have coordinated with Russians
Might have something to do with it.
interesting discussion thread over at TPM – a video clip of M Haydn talked about this [collection] a few days ago [on CNN], thought this would be the WH move. one commenter thought the info Nunes got was from Comey who was trying to track who was the T/ WH source re: investigation, and Nunes immediately showed himself to be it.
McCarthyite! What have you got against close fraternal ties and improved cooperation between the American and Russian people anyways? Мир и дружба!
OT: Gorsuch hearings. unanimous SCOTUS ruling rejects Gorsuch, so to speak
http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-essential-washington-updates-supreme-court-rules-fo
r-children-with-1490202454-htmlstory.html
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/03/neil_gorsuch_s_arrogant_frozen
_trucker_opinion_shows_he_wants_to_be_like.html
The more I read about Gorsuch, the more alarmed I become. He gave Bush legal advice to support his torture policy as well as his policy to deny trials to Guantanamo prisoners. Also Hobby Lobby. Colorado Senator Gardner is his sponsor, so to speak. Gardner is a strong supporter of “personhood.” Two personhood bills were defeated in Colorado, and he also introduced one to the US House of Representatives. This is a back door path to overturning Roe v Wade. But like Hobby Lobby would impose a fanatical group’s religious beliefs on everyone.
watched some of the hearings and was pretty shocked by his extremism. seems to me torture alone would be enough to get sufficient votes against his confirmation. heard some of the questioning about hobby lobby and employers religious beliefs. I took the Supremes’ ruling to say his views are too extreme for them [the timing of the Supremes’ ruling – came out during the hearings – is what seems to indicate they were commenting on Gorsuch]
Nunes remark that his discovery did not relate to the Russian hacking investigation was the last nail in his coffin. He stated that he went over to “….” to look at the information, that there was a legal FISA warrant, but I find it impossible to believe that he was handed a box of FISA warrants to go through that did not directly relate to the Russia hacking investigation. Just not credible without the parsing of word “Russian” so next best guess is Ukraine, which points towards Manafort and then Trump. Roll Manafort!
OT blah blah.
Neil Gorsuch regardless of the spelling of his first name is way too pretty to be on the Supreme Court. Pretty and groomed, well-groomed. Just saying; anyone that pretty has no idea of impartiality: it’s the curse of the pretty. And yes they’re judged as unfairly as the rest of us, but when you go before a judge you don’t want a pretty boy up there. Best you can do in that situation is act submissive and hope the judge cares when he’s found out to be a rapist.
Hard to keep up with everything, but watched a couple of Gorsuch committee hearings today. This guy makes Scalia look like the good old days.
The conservative extremist pretty boy set new standards for saying nothing, while mouthing pious, risible lies about “justice” and “judging”. Makes fellow “conservative” pretty boy liar Roberts look like a second stringer.
Also, too, Dems set new standards of hapless, adrift-at-sea questioning in the rounds I happened to catch, but hard to listen to very much because one simply can’t stomach listening to ten seconds of Repub “questioning”. All in all, a useless waste of time.
Schiff claiming he’s seen evidence of collusion. CNN reporting Trump campaign officials coordinated with Russians to time release of information. If true, that’s the ballgame. It would explain Nunes hair-on-fire trip to the White House as well.
Guess we will find out fairly quickly here if we are a nation of laws or banana republic.