Rep. Devin Nunes’ scheme to hold his own memo hostage for fun and profit is getting a second round of rebuttal. After Rep. Mark Pocan delivered a thorough whack from the House end of the bench, there’s another swing coming from the Senate end of the Hill.
Today, I’m told, Sen. Mark Warner (Va.) — the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee — will publicly say that classified information debunks the arguments reportedly made in the now-notorious secret memo by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), which bolsters the idea that the Russia investigation is a Deep-State Coup against Trump. ...
“Senator Warner will say publicly that unlike almost all of the 200 GOP congressmen who’ve seen the memo, he has actually read the underlying documents,” Rachel Cohen, a spokesman for Warner, emailed me this morning. “He is confident that there was nothing improper like what this memo seems to allege.”
Nunes’ attack on the FBI follows the same technique he’s employed from the start of the investigation, when he twice claimed to uncover evidence of misdeeds around “unmasking.” Those incidents turned out to be nothing but standard practice turned into a mock scandal by a joint White House-Nunes effort to distort information.
The difference between the start of the investigation and today is that back then Republicans seemed embarrassed by Nunes’ publicity-seeking antics and his willingness to throw the FBI, CIA, DOJ, and whole intelligence establishment under the bus for one iota of cheap “blame Obama” defense. After all, Nunes didn’t recuse himself from the House Russia investigation following his second frantic press conference out of a sudden outbreak of honesty. He did it because he was getting pressure from his fellow Republicans.
Now that pressure is gone. Nunes is getting support in the House for his fact-distorting memo, and support from both Trump and Russia ‘bots for his social media tie-in campaign. Nunes’ first attempts to generate news may have backfired, but he and his fellow Republicans have since refined the technique: Take classified sources, cherry pick a few phrases, build up mock outrage, then plan a release campaign that includes support from Capitol Hill, the White House, conservative media, and Russian ‘bots. Finally, give the public a peek at the document’s fantastic claims—while continuing to hide the source documents that completely contradict the now-on-every-channel.
Nunes has gone from GOP laughingstock to the thought leader of the party.
And Nunes has demonstrated that you can put out a memo about the FBI without confirming any of the information with the FBI.
In a letter to Representative Devin Nunes of California, the Republican chairman of the committee, Stephen E. Boyd, an assistant attorney general, stressed that the committee had refused to show the memo to the F.B.I.
“We do not understand why the committee would possibly seek to disclose classified and law enforcement sensitive information without first consulting with the relevant members of the intelligence community,” Mr. Boyd wrote.
Because Nunes has made it perfectly clear you can treat an organization run by a Republican—who followed a Republican, who followed a Republican—as if it’s a partisan Democratic stronghold, unworthy of trust.
The stunts that got put him in the doghouse a year ago are now standard practice accepted by Republican leadership.
Republicans and conservative commentators have increasingly argued that the investigation derives from a conspiracy by biased law enforcement officials seeking to sabotage President Trump.
Democrats are working to actually release Nunes memo, along with the underlying documents. But the danger represented by the approach Republicans have taken can’t be overestimated. After devoting a long-term effort to devaluing and demeaning the free press, they’ve now joined in campaign against the intelligence community, judges, grand juries, and every other element of our legal system. They’ve created a system in which volume equals truth, and Russians are giving them a megaphone.
The concern is not that actions like those of Devin Nunes are pushing us toward a brink, but that the overall plan to undermine the investigation by devaluing institutions as well as the media may have carried us over the cliff months ago.