Tag: Devin Nunes

GOP lawmakers say Trump would make mistake in firing Rosenstein

The following article by Scott Wong was posted on the Hill website January 31, 2018:

Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein appears at the Global Cyber Security Summit in London this month. (Credit: Mary Turner/Reuters)

Republicans say President Trump would be making a big mistake in firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

The Justice Department’s No. 2 official has been in the president’s crosshairs since appointing special counsel Robert Mueller to lead the agency’s Russia investigation.

He’s the only official who could fire Mueller given Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from Russia-related matters.

Some Republicans are now worried that a soon-to-be-released memo from GOP staff on the House Intelligence Committee could hand Trump more ammunition to fire Rosenstein — a move they fear would boomerang on the White House and Republicans running for reelection in the House and Senate. Continue reading “GOP lawmakers say Trump would make mistake in firing Rosenstein”

Devin Nunes Won’t Say If He Worked With White House on Anti-FBI Memo

The following article by Betsy Woodruff and Spencer Ackerman was posted on the Daily Beast website January 30, 2018:

The House intel committee GOP leader refused to answer behind closed doors if he coordinated with the president’s team on his report blasting Rosenstein, Comey, and McCabe.

Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty

The Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee refused to answer when a colleague asked him if he had coordinated his incendiary surveillance memo with the White House, The Daily Beast has learned.

During Monday’s contentious closed-door committee meeting, Rep. Mike Quigley, a Democrat, asked Nunes point-blank if his staffers had been talking with the White House as they compiled a four-page memo alleging FBI and Justice Department abuses over surveillance of President Trump’s allies in the Russia probe. Continue reading “Devin Nunes Won’t Say If He Worked With White House on Anti-FBI Memo”

So Much for Speech: Trump on Hot Mic Says He’ll Release Memo

The following article by Laurie Kellman was posted on the Associated Press website January 31, 2018:

Credit: Win McNamee/Pool via AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scenes from the Capitol on a night of pomp, pageantry and politics for the State of the Union address:

Talk about stepping on one’s message.

Schmoozing in the House chamber after delivering his maiden State of the Union speech, a hot mic caught President Donald Trump telling a Republican lawmaker that he was “100 percent” in favor of making public a classified Republican intelligence memo. That was further than the White House had gone on the matter and not something Trump had said during the hour-plus speech he had finished moments earlier. Continue reading “So Much for Speech: Trump on Hot Mic Says He’ll Release Memo”

Ryan defends release of memo on alleged surveillance abuses but warns against tying it to Mueller probe

The following article by Karoun Demirjian was posted on the Washington Post website January 30, 2018:

After the House Intelligence Committee voted to release a classified memo, Republicans lauded the step while Democrats criticized it as a political deception.(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan on Tuesday defended the way that Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes handled a politically divisive vote to publicize a classified memo detailing alleged surveillance abuses by federal law enforcement agencies, but he warned against using it to discredit the special counsel’s probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Ryan (R-Wis.) said Nunes (R-Calif.) was following a well-established process when the committee voted Monday to release a GOP-drafted memo to the public, provided President Trump does not block its efforts within five days. The panel also voted to make a memo drafted by Democrats rebutting the GOP’s document available to House members to read in a secure facility, as the panel had done with the GOP memo 11 days earlier along party lines. Continue reading “Ryan defends release of memo on alleged surveillance abuses but warns against tying it to Mueller probe”

Nunes Didn’t Read Source Material Behind His FBI Memo

The following article by Ryan Sit of Newsweek was posted on the National Memo website January 30, 2018:

The Republican lawmaker who spearheaded the campaign to release a classified memo critical of the Justice Department and FBI “cherry-picked” the contents in document without ever reading all the source material, a top Democrat charges.

In a Monday night interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Representative Adam Schiff, (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that Representative Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) hasn’t read all the details behind the controversial secret memo.  Continue reading “Nunes Didn’t Read Source Material Behind His FBI Memo”

6 things to know about the fight over Rep. Devin Nunes’ secret memo

The following article by Sarah D. Wire was posted on the Los Angeles Times website January 29, 2018:

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2017. Susan Walsh/AP

Washington is abuzz over a secret memo that House Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, a California Republican from Tulare, has been pushing to release. The memo reportedly alleges senior FBI and Justice Department officials relied on questionable and politically motivated sources to justify surveillance of President Trump’s campaign.

In a highly unusual move Monday, the committee voted to declassify the memo, meaning the public could soon get a look at it. Continue reading “6 things to know about the fight over Rep. Devin Nunes’ secret memo”

Why we might want to be skeptical of the GOP memo criticizing the FBI

The following article by Amber Phillips was posted on the Washington Post website January 30, 2018:

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) says the House Intelligence Committee vote to release documents alleging abuse in the FBI’s Russia probe marks a “very sad day.” (The Washington Post)

There is a GOP memo detailing alleged mistakes, and even potential political bias, in the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, and President Trump and his allies in Congress want to make it public as soon as this week. A Republican-controlled House committee took the first step Monday night by voting along party lines to release it.

What is in the memo could potentially be a step in bringing the investigation into Trump-Russia collusion to an end, one senior Trump official predicted to my Washington Post colleagues. Continue reading “Why we might want to be skeptical of the GOP memo criticizing the FBI”

Republicans vote to release memo alleging FBI missteps in surveillance of Trump campaign operative

The following article by Karoun Demirjian and Devlin Barrett was posted on the Washington Post website January 29, 2018:

Created by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the four-page memo is critical of the Justice Department and the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)

The House Intelligence Committee voted Monday to release a memo detailing alleged surveillance abuses by the FBI and the Justice Department, escalating a political fight between conservatives and the nation’s intelligence agencies.

The vote, which proceeded along party lines in the Republican-controlled committee, means that President Trump now has up to five days to review the material and decide whether to keep it secret, though he could agree to the release anytime before that deadline. If he does nothing, the committee can release the memo publicly. Continue reading “Republicans vote to release memo alleging FBI missteps in surveillance of Trump campaign operative”

Here’s what’s actually in the Justice Department memo that Republicans claim is so shocking

The following article by Melanie Schmitz was posted on the ThinkProgress website January 29, 2018:

The memo is reportedly filled with cherry-picked facts meant to paint the Justice Department in a nefarious light.

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 03: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (C) leaves the U.S. Capitol after a meeting with House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) January 3, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The contents of a secretive memo being circulated by Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill were finally made public on Sunday, after sources spoke with The New York Times and laid them out in detail. For the most part, the report appears to back what Democrats have contended: that the memo is comprised of “cherry-picked” facts meant to paint the Justice Department — which is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials — in a bad light.

The memo, which Republicans have called “shocking,” “troubling,” and “worse than Watergate,” reportedly focuses on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who was appointed in April 2017. The Times report states that the memo shows Rosenstein “approved an application to extend surveillance” on former Trump campaign associate Carter Page, a subject in the ongoing Russia investigation, shortly after taking office. Continue reading “Here’s what’s actually in the Justice Department memo that Republicans claim is so shocking”

F.B.I. Texts and Dueling Memos Escalate Fight Over Russia Inquiry

The following article by Charlie Savage, Nicholas Fandos and Adam Goldman was posted on the New York Times website January 24, 2018:

Representative Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said his party would move to make its memo available to the House on the same terms as the Republican memo. Credit J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department warned the House Intelligence Committee chairman on Wednesday that it was “extraordinarily reckless” for Republicans to push to release a committee memo that draws on classified information to portray the origins of the Russian investigation as scandalous.

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. Continue reading “F.B.I. Texts and Dueling Memos Escalate Fight Over Russia Inquiry”