Tag: Devin Nunes

Author of controversial Nunes memo joining National Security Council

The White House. Credit: Jabin Botsford, Getty

(CNN) — A congressional aide who was key in crafting the controversial Republican House Intelligence Committee memo that accused FBI and Justice Department officials of abusing their surveillance authority is set to join the National Security Council, two sources familiar with the matter said.

Kashyap Patel, a senior staffer for Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, has been hired to join the NSC’s International Organizations and Alliances directorate. A Trump administration official said Patel is expected to report to work at the White House on Monday.

A spokesman for the National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

View the complete February 1 article by Jeremy Diamond and Jeremy Herb on the CNN website here.

‘Pages of lies’: Democratic lawmaker reveals how Devin Nunes has buried key evidence in the Russia probe

Credit: MSNBC Screengrab

Rep. Eric Swalwell is convinced that the outgoing GOP House Intelligence chairman has covered for Trump’s wrongdoing.

With President Donald Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen spilling the beans on Trump’s participation in his team’s illicit negotiations with the Russians in a plea agreement with special counsel Robert Mueller, the allegations of collusion are looking more serious by the day. And one person who does not come off looking good amid the whole affair is outgoing House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), who will cease to lead the committee next year as Democrats assume the House majority.

Nunes, a close ally of Trump, has gone to great lengths to twist his committee’s investigative power away from Trump’s ties to Russia and onto the supposed misconduct of federal investigators who were looking into Trump’s ties to Russia, from writing a shoddy, partisan memo that alleged the FBI improperly obtained FISA warrants against the Trump campaign, to traveling to London to try to get British intelligence officials to discredit ex-MI6 spy Christopher Steele’s dossier on Trump.

And the worst part of it all, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) told Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House” on Thursday, is that Nunes was sitting on real evidence of wrongdoing by Trump and his family, could have pursued the matter, and did not.

View the complete November 29 article by Matthew Chapman on the AlterNet.org website here.

Congressman: Nunes hid evidence on Trump and Russian meddling

Devin Nunes blocked investigations into ‘worrisome contacts between the Russians and candidate Trump, his family, his businesses, and his campaign,’ according to a member of his committee.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Credit: Carlos Barria, Reuters

A top member of the House Intelligence Committee has revealed shocking details about how Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) abused his position as committee chairman to obstruct the Mueller investigation and shield Trump from accountability.

In a blistering op-ed for Nunes’ hometown Fresno Bee, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), said that Nunes blocked committee Democrats from following up on leads about “worrisome contacts between the Russians and candidate Trump, his family, his businesses, and his campaign.”

What’s more, Swalwell said, Nunes blocked special counsel Robert Mueller from seeing evidence that “many witnesses committed perjury or offered information relevant to the special counsel’s work” when they testified before the committee.

View the complete October 18 post by Tommy hHristopher on the ShareBlue.com website here.

Devin Nunes uses campaign cash to push his own anti-science podcast

The following article by Desai Martin was posted on the ShareBlue.com website September 7, 2018:

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) on Capitol Hill on Dec. 19. Credit: Aaron P. Bernstein, Reuters

On a campaign-funded podcast, Rep. Devin Nunes interviewed an anti-science historian who denies climate change played a role in the devastating California wildfires.

Voters in Republican Rep. Devin Nunes’ California district  haven’t seen much of their congressman lately. He’s been keeping a low profile, dodging scandals and anger from his constituents that he’s more focused on protecting Trump than addressing their needs.

Plus he’s been recording an “official podcast,” funded by his campaign. And he is using that platform to promote an anti-science, climate change-denying historian to explain the causes of the California wildfires.

On his latest episode, Nunes asks Dr. Bruce Thorton, introduced as a “classicist historian,” if it is global warming or something else that is causing the problems with so many fires in California.

View the complete article here.

Supposed intel pro Nunes can’t get a meeting with intelligence agencies

The following article by Dan Desai Martin was posted on the ShareBlue.com website August 28, 2018:

British intelligence agencies snubbed Republican Congressman Devin Nunes because they feared he was only ‘trying to stir up a controversy.’

House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes Credit: Drew Angerer, Getty Images

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) has lost so much credibility as the head of the House Intelligence Committee that our global allies no longer take him seriously.

In an embarrassing snub, a trio of British intelligence agencies refused to meet with Nunes when he was in London, the Atlanticreports.

Nunes took a trip to London to learn more about Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence officer who authored the famous dossier detailing connections between Trump and Russia. Several of the allegations in the report have since been verified, but others remain unverified.

View the complete article here.

Devin Nunes silent after Trump gang’s 16 convictions and guilty pleas

The following article by Caroline Orr was posted on the ShareBlue.com website August 24, 2018:

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)Credit: Carlos Barria, Reuters

Rep. Devin Nunes seems to hope that ignoring the damning news will make it go away.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) is one of Trump’s most outspoken defenders. He even admitted, during a private fundraiser, that he uses his position as head of the House Intelligence Committee to shield Trump from scrutiny as the ongoing Russia investigation continues to deliver damning evidence.

And to be sure, there’s plenty of damning evidence that Trump needs protection from: Two dozen people, including five in Trump’s inner circle, have been charged in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

That’s what makes Nunes’ silence this week so conspicuous.

View the complete article here.

Devin Nunes, in secretly recorded tape, tells donors GOP majority is necessary to protect Trump: ‘We’re the only ones’

The following article by Isaac Stanley-Becker was posted on the Washington Post website August 9, 2018:

The Fix’s Aaron Blake analyzes the key takeaways from a secret recording of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes. (JM Rieger/The Washington Post)

Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, appears to have moved from criticizing the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election to strategizing about how to blunt its impact should it imperil President Trump.

The most promising instrument in this effort, he suggested in unfiltered remarks last month, is retaining a GOP-controlled Congress.

Even if he had been speaking publicly, the eight-term Republican might not have chosen his words differently. This, after all, is the adamantly pro-Trump lawmaker who in February released a memorandum accusing the intelligence community of conspiring against the president. In May, Nunes sought documents from the Justice Department — as part of his investigation into the law enforcement officials leading the Russia inquiry — that senior intelligence officials maintained could expose a top source and endanger lives.

View the complete article here.

House Intel chair calls for ban on electronic voting systems

The following article by Julia Machester was posted on the Hill website July 26, 2018:

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) called for a ban on electronic voting systems in an interview that aired Thursday on Hill.TV’s “Rising.”

“The one thing we’ve been warning about for many, many years on the Intelligence committee is about the electronic voting systems,” Nunes told Hill.TV’s Buck Sexton, who sat with the lawmaker on Wednesday.

“Those are really dangerous in my opinion, and should not be used. In California — at least in the counties that I represent — they do not use an electronic system,” he continued.

View the complete article here.

How a Trump Decision Revealed a G.O.P. Memo’s Shaky Foundation

The following article by Charlie Savage was posted on the New York Times website July 22, 2018:

President Trump claimed vindication in a series of tweets even though newly released documents undermined Republicans’ claims in a dispute over the wiretapping of a Trump campaign aide. Credit: Al Drago, The New York Times

WASHINGTON — When President Trump declassified a memo by House Republicans in February that portrayed the surveillance of a former campaign adviser as scandalous, his motivation was clear: to give congressional allies and conservative commentators another avenue to paint the Justice Department’s investigation into Russian election interference as tainted from the start.

But this past weekend, Mr. Trump’s unprecedented decision, which he made over the objections of law enforcement and intelligence officials, had a consequence that revealed his gambit’s shaky foundation. The government released the court documents in which the F.B.I. made its case for conducting the surveillance — records that plainly demonstrated that key elements of Republicans’ claims about the bureau’s actions were misleading or false.

On Sunday, Mr. Trump nevertheless sought to declare victory. In a series of early-morning tweets, he claimed without evidence that the newly disclosed files “confirm with little doubt that the Department of ‘Justice’ and FBI misled the courts” to win approval to start wiretapping the former adviser, Carter Page, shortly after he had left the campaign amid criticism of his ties to Russia.

View the complete article here.

With the release of new documents, Devin Nunes’s memo on Carter Page has gotten even less credible

The following article by Philip Bump was posted on the Washington Post website July 22, 2018:

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, speaks with reporters on Capitol Hill on Oct. 24. Credit: Carlos Barria, Reuters

Earlier this year, the political world was gripped by a stunning accusation from Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) that the government’s application for a warrant to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was born of bias and almost entirely reliant on a dossier of information compiled on the dime of Democratic operatives. He had a memo that made that argument; eventually, and probably without much goading, President Trump was persuaded to release it publicly.

Even based on what was known then, the hype surrounding Nunes’s memo seemed to oversell the point. In short order, other revelations about the warrant application made it clear that the contents of the memo were iffy. It was the second time in two years that Nunes had gone to bat in defense of one of Trump’s pet theories, and neither time worked out that well.

As it turns out though, Nunes’s efforts to raise questions about the surveillance warrant, granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, were even less robust than they seemed at the time. With the release Friday of a redacted copy of both the initial warrant application targeting Page in October 2016 and the three 90-day extensions of the warrant, we can get a better sense of just how far from the mark the Nunes memo actually was.

View the complete post here.