Tag: Devin Nunes

‘Shove it,’ Rep. Ted Lieu tells GOP colleague Devin Nunes in response to lawsuit threat

Washington Post logoThe politicians’ dueling played out, as it almost always does these days, largely on Twitter and cable TV.

Rep. Ted Lieu (D) alleged in December that fellow California Rep. Devin Nunes (R) conspired with Lev Parnas, a former associate of President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, to undermine the United States. Parnas has pleaded not guilty to violating campaign finance laws.

Then a lawyer for Nunes, who is the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, sent a multi-page missive threatening to sue for damage to Nunes’s reputation, Lieu tweeted. The Democratic congressman replied with a letter of his own and posted a photo of the document online. Continue reading.

New text messages put Devin Nunes on the hot seat

Washington Post logoA month ago, when phone records showed contact between Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Lev Parnas, Nunes said he didn’t recall Parnas’s name and couldn’t confirm the call. On Wednesday, with Parnas about to appear on TV for the first time, Nunes suddenly offered a (very conveniently timed) confirmation, but he downplayed the call as being about “random things.”

Now, Nunes’s claims about his ties to Parnas are even more questionable.

Newly released documents Friday night showed Parnas in repeated contact with a Nunes aide, Derek Harvey. He appeared to be looping Harvey into the Ukraine effort led by Rudolph W. Giuliani, and the messages show the three of them met at the Trump hotel in Washington. Parnas also set up calls for Harvey with the same Ukrainian prosecutors who were working with Giuliani. Continue reading.

Devin Nunes vows to sue fellow congressman after allegation he ‘conspired with Parnas’

AlterNet logoRep. Devin Nunes was outed by Rudy Giuliani’s associate Lev Parnas in an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Wednesday.

In the conversation, Parnas explained that he and Nunes didn’t have much of a relationship until he was told to work with Nunes’ aide Derek Harvey.

“We met several times at the Trump Hotel, but our relationship started getting — basically where it expanded was when I was introduced to his aide, Derek Harvey, and the reason why Derek Harvey I was told because Devin Nunes had an ethics — something to do with the Ethics Committee, he couldn’t be in the spotlight. He was kind of shunned a little bit and that he was looking into this Ukraine stuff also, wanted to help out. And they gave me Derek Harvey to deal with,” said Parnas. Continue reading.

Local Paper Asks How Nunes Finances Multiple Lawsuits

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) has aggressively gone after his critics with defamation lawsuits — five of which are still active— targeting Twitter, CNN, McClatchy, a Republican political strategist, satirical social media accounts, and others. But as local paper The Fresno Bee reported on Saturday, it’s unclear where Nunes is getting the funding for these lawsuits.

It noted that while Nunes himself seems to largely live on his salary as a Congressman, and his wife is a school teacher, he appears to have no trouble affording multiple high-profile lawsuits that likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The one lawsuit that he has already dropped after a few weeks, which Nunes brought against a man who accused him of being a “fake farmer,” cost $3,400, according to Federal Election Commission records cited by the outlet.

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Watch: Devin Nunes claims he was ‘stalked’ after reporter asked basic questions about his role in Trump’s Ukraine scheme

AlterNet logoRep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, claimed Sunday that he was “stalked” at a $15,000-per-plate GOP fundraiser at the luxury Lotte New York Palace Hotel in Manhattan.

In reality, Nunes was approached at the GOP event Saturday by The Intercept‘s Lee Fang, who asked basic questions about the California Republican’s role in President Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.

“Hey, Congressman Nunes. I just wanted to ask you really quickly: What were your calls with Lev Parnas about?” Fang said, referring to an indicted associate of Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. “Were you asking about the effort to investigate Hunter Biden?”

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Watch: Devin Nunes claims he was ‘stalked’ after reporter asked basic questions about his role in Trump’s Ukraine scheme

AlterNet logoRep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, claimed Sunday that he was “stalked” at a $15,000-per-plate GOP fundraiser at the luxury Lotte New York Palace Hotel in Manhattan.

In reality, Nunes was approached at the GOP event Saturday by The Intercept‘s Lee Fang, who asked basic questions about the California Republican’s role in President Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.

“Hey, Congressman Nunes. I just wanted to ask you really quickly: What were your calls with Lev Parnas about?” Fang said, referring to an indicted associate of Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. “Were you asking about the effort to investigate Hunter Biden?”

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Fresno Bee burns Devin Nunes to the ground in scathing editorial

AlterNet logoThe editorial board of the Fresno Bee has written a scathing takedown of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) for his extraordinary fealty to President Donald Trump, which the editors say is harming the country.

Specifically, the editorial accuses Nunes of forsaking his oath of office as a congressman to serve as Trump’s most loyal toady on the House Intelligence Committee.

“As has been true for nearly all of Trump’s first term, Nunes has relinquished his proper role as an independent representative of Congress and has instead acted like a member of the Trump 2020 re-election team,” the editorial states.

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‘You should have recused yourself’: Lawyer for Lev Parnas explains why Nunes’ participation in House impeachment hearings is a huge conflict of interest

AlterNet logoDuring the House Intelligence Committee’s recent impeachment hearings, Rep.  Devin Nunes of California was among President Donald Trump’s most vociferous and combative defenders. The Intelligence Committee’s lengthy, comprehensive impeachment report, released on Tuesday, shows that Nunes was hardly an impartial observer — and the famous criminal defense attorney Joseph A. Bondy, who is representing indicted Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, asserted the GOP congressman had no business participating in the hearings.

Information in the House Intelligence report vividly illustrates why Nunes should have recused himself from the House Intelligence hearings: a series of conversations with Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, who was recently arrested for alleged campaign finance violations. In other words, Nunes’ participation was — according to Bondy — a huge conflict of interest.

Journalist Natasha Betrand has posted, on Twitter, a partial timeline of those Nunes/Parnas conversations: the two of them, AT&T records show, spoke several times on April 12, 2019. Bertrand, posting the information, tweeted, “More calls between Devin Nunes and Lev Parnas, including one that lasted 8 minutes on April 12.”

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Impeachment Investigators Got Rudy Giuliani’s Phone Records—And They’re Quite Revealing

Trump’s lawyer was in talks with, among others, Devin Nunes and officials at OMB as the president pursued a political agenda in Ukraine.

Rudy Giuliani and one of his indicted Ukrainian associates exchanged a flurry of phone calls with Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), the top Republican on Congress’ impeachment investigation panel, amid a Giuliani-led effort to dig up dirt on President Donald Trump’s political opponents in Ukraine.

The House Intelligence Committee obtained phone records from AT&T showing extensive communications in early April involving Nunes, Giuliani, Lev Parnas, and The Hillcolumnist John Solomon, according to records released in the committee’s formal reporton its investigation underlying impeachment charges against President Donald Trump.

The records shed new light on the relationship between Nunes, one of the impeachment inquiries most vehement critics, and the individuals at the center of what committee Democrats describe as an illicit campaign to weaponize U.S. foreign policy to Trump’s political advantage.

Continue reading here.

Nunes faces potential ethics review over alleged meeting with Ukrainian official

The Hill logoRep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) could face a review of whether he violated House ethics rules by allegedly meeting with a former Ukrainian official to get dirt on the Bidens on a taxpayer-funded trip.

At least one outside group has filed a complaint against Nunes with the independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), which can review cases against lawmakers and refer them to the House Ethics Committee.

The Democratic Coalition, a liberal group, filed an ethics complaint against Nunes, with the OCE alleging that he violated House rules by having a conflict of interest in the impeachment inquiry if he had interactions with people under investigation and by engaging in political activity while on official business.

View the complete November 25 article by Cristina Marcos on The Hill website here.