Tag: Devin Nunes

Nunes to move from supporting to leading role in Trump impeachment defense

Top Republican on Intelligence panel will be in spotlight during public hearings after taking back seat in closed depositions

House Intelligence ranking member Devin Nunes will soon shift from the passenger to the driver’s seat in the Republican defense of President Donald Trump as the House enters the public hearing portion of its impeachment inquiry next month.

Nunes, a nine-term California Republican who’s developed a distaste for the media in recent years as he’s become a staunch defender of the president, has taken a low-key role in the impeachment inquiry compared to House Oversight ranking member Jim Jordan, a Trump ally who is more friendly with the press.

It’s an odd dynamic considering Nunes is the GOP counterpart to Intelligence Chairman Adam B. Schiff, who has been chosen by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to lead the impeachment inquiry.

View the complete October 31 article by Lindsey McPherson on The Roll Call website here.

New report reveals a Devin Nunes staffer is plotting to expose the whistleblower’s identity

AlterNet logoIn an effort to expose the still-secret identity of the whistleblower who sparked the Ukraine scandal that has ballooned into a full-fledged impeachment inquiry, a staffer for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) has been plotting within the House Intelligence Committee to guarantee the release of the individual’s name, according to a new report in the Daily Beast.

Despite the fact that witness testimony, public evidence, and President Donald Trump’s own admissions have all largely confirmed that allegations made by the whistleblower, thus rendering the original complaint irrelevant, conservatives have been obsessed with the person’s identity. They’ve claimed that the whistleblower had an anti-Trump agenda or was working with Democrats to bring the president down. But even if the right-wing claims about the whistleblower had merit, they wouldn’t change the truth of what Trump has done that is appropriately leading to his impeachment.

For people like Nunes and his allies, though, it’s less important that an offensive strategy in the impeachment make sense than it is for it to create perceived enemies. And they see the whistleblower as a prime target for demonization.

View the complete October 29  article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

How a Devin Nunes aide was deeply involved in the push for Trump to exploit Ukraine: report

AlterNet logoWith President Donald Trump now facing an impeachment inquiry in the U.S. House of Representatives because of the Ukraine scandal, Rep. Devin Nunes of California continues to be an aggressive defender of the president — insisting that Trump did nothing wrong during his now-famous July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And according to a report by journalist Natasha Bertrand for Politico, one of Nunes’ top staffers did a lot to promote Trump’s belief that “Ukraine was brimming with corruption and interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of Democrats.”

The staffer is Kashyap Patel, who joined the National Security Council’s International Organizations and Alliances directorate in February. Bertrand reports that according to recent testimony by Fiona Hill (formerly a senior director of European and Russian affairs under Trump), Patel was so involved in Ukraine-related activities earlier this year that Trump thought he was in charge of Ukraine policy for the NSC. An anonymous source described by Bertrand as someone with “direct knowledge of (Hill’s) recent deposition” described her Patel-related testimony to Politico.

Previously, Bertrand reports, Democrats on Capitol Hill were aware of Patel because of his efforts to discredit former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. And because of Patel’s efforts to influence Trump on Ukraine, according to Bertrand, House Democrats involved in the impeachment inquiry now have “yet another name to add to their witness list.”

View the complete October 23 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Watch: Devin Nunes attempt to defend Trump backfires after president’s acting intel chief slaps down his question

AlterNet logoRep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) tried to get acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire to go along with his nefarious theory about the intelligence community whistleblower’s complaint against President Donald Trump — but it massively backfired when the acting DNI wouldn’t play ball.

During an exchange with Maguire, Nunes pointed out that most intelligence community whistleblower complaints do not get aired out in public as they have been for the past two weeks like the one levied against the president.

“Are you aware of any cases like this that were put into the spotlight?” Nunes asked. “Would this be the way to handle it out in the public like this?”

Maguire admitted that he did not know of any other cases that had been handled like this — but then slapped down the entire premise of Nunes’s question.

View the complete September 26 article by Brad Reed from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Devin Nunes claims Democrats harassed his wife, resulting in increased security at her school. That’s not what really happened

AlterNet logoRep. Devin Nunes of California has been one of the most litigious Republicans in Congress. He sued a fellow Republican, GOP strategist Liz Mair, for allegedly defaming him online; he became the butt of jokes for suing Twitter over a parody account, Devin Nunes’ Cow. And, he recently sued a liberal/progressive activist group — a lawsuit that, according to a report by the Sacramento Bee, has holes in it.

In the lawsuit, Nunes claimed that the group had requested the work e-mails of his wife, Elizabeth Nunes, an elementary school teacher — which resulted in her being “doxxed” and public school employees being harassed. But according to the Sacramento Bee’s Kate Irby, the school district where Elizabeth Nunes works “has no records that show public employees feared harassment.”

According to Irby, the school where Elizabeth Nunes is employed “says it has no records of teachers reporting harassment or increased security measures.”

View the complete September 17 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Former congressional staffer who helped Nunes undermine the Russia probe promoted to top Trump national security job

AlterNet logoA former congressional staffer who helped Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) undermine the Russia investigation has been promoted on the National Security Council staff.

Kash Patel, a top Nunes staffer and former senior counsel for the House Intelligence Committee, was bumped up to serve as senior director of the Counterterrorism Directorate of the National Security Council, reported The Daily Beast.

Patel left Capitol Hill earlier this year to serve on the NSC’s Directorate of International Organizations and Alliances, and was then promoted to a leadership post on counterterrorism.

View the complete July 31 article by Travis Gettys from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

GOP conspiracy buff Devin Nunes claims with no evidence that Democrats are conspiring with Mueller to create an anti-Trump ‘narrative’

AlterNet logoRep. Devin Nunes of California has never been shy about promoting right-wing conspiracy theories, and the Republican congressman has come up with one involving House Democrats and former Special Counsel Robert Mueller: that the two are joining forces to create a “narrative” about President Donald Trump and the Russia investigation.

Mueller is scheduled to appear before two Democrat-led committees next week on Wednesday, July 24. Previously, Mueller’s testimony was scheduled for July 17, but it was postponed a week in order to give House members more time to ask him questions. And Nunes, during an appearance on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News on Monday night, insisted that Mueller and Democrats are conspiring against the president.

“There’s got to be a reason for it,” the congressman told Hannity.

View the complete July 16 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet logo here.

Devin Nunes gets crushed at House Intelligence hearing for trying to pass off Manafort’s ties to Russia as normal

Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) on Wednesday delivered a blistering denunciation of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) for trying to brush off former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s past ties to Russian agents as perfectly normal.

As part of his opening statement about hearings into the contents of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Nunes claimed that Mueller documented “a long litany of ordinary contacts between Trump associates and Russians,” while also claiming that “no conversations actually created or even discussed a conspiracy.”

Himes shot down Nunes’s claims during a House Intelligence Committee meeting by pointing out that Manafort’s history of working with pro-Kremlin political parties and his massive debts to a Kremlin-linked Russian oligarch were far from ordinary. He also called out Nunes for shrugging off Manafort’s decision to share internal Trump campaign polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Ukrainian national with alleged ties to Russian intelligence, in the hopes that he would give it to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

View the complete June 12 article by Brad Reed from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Devin Nunes ridiculed over his attorney’s hilarious litigious blunder: His ‘lawyers are just as stupid as he is’

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was widely mocked on Monday after Fox News reported he was suing his hometown newspaper for $150 million over a story titled, “A yacht, cocaine, prostitutes: Winery partly owned by Nunes sued after fundraiser event.”

One particularly embarrassing error in the lawsuit was discovered by LA Times national correspondent Matt Pearce.

In a section of the lawsuit discussing a tweet by former Fresno Beereporter Mackenzie Mays, the authors made a major mistake.

View the complete April 9 article by Bob Brigham with Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Devin Nunes Threatens To Go After FBI Officials Who Investigated Trump

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) is threatening to go after career FBI officials who investigated Trump and his campaign’s misdeeds during the 2016 election, telling Fox News on Sunday that he’s planning to file eight “criminal referrals” to the Department of Justice against unnamed investigators.

Nunes gave few specifics, including no names and no actual evidence of possible crimes that were committed by these officials.

But the “referrals” seem to hinge on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants issued against members of Trump’s campaign.

View the complete April 8 article by Emily Singer on the National Memo website here.