16/06/17 20:03
Devin Nunes is a seven-term Republican congressman representing California’s 22nd District. He has a masters degree in Agriculture and at the age of 23, was the youngest trustee of a California community college in the state’s history. Devin, a strong Trump supporter, was selected for the Trump transition team on November 11 just three days after the election. On December 1, 2016, he was appointed by Paul Ryan to be the House Intelligence Committee Chairman. In this role, he would be charged with investigating Russian interference in our election. A member of the transition team was tasked with investigating the transition team. What could go wrong?
Nunes, from the start, adamantly denied any wrong doing by the President or any of the campaign team. His focus, he said, was primarily on “highly illegal leaks” to the press. Nunes had called the Russia investigation a “witch hunt” and that he would not be coordinating with the Senate Intelligence Committee but would do things his own way. Nunes continued to deny that any evidence existed of collusion and that unmasking of U.S. citizens is a far more important crime to be investigated by the committee. On March 4th, President Trump fueled the fire by tweeting an accusation that Obama had wiretapped his phones in Trump Tower.
On March 20th, James Comey and Mike Rogers, during a Senate intelligence Hearing, the two Directors swore under oath that no such “wiretapping” or surveillance of the Trump campaign was ever ordered or conducted by Obama. A timeline of events can be found here. The next day, Nunes held a bizarre press conference claiming he had seen evidence of wiretapping by the Obama administration. When asked to produce the evidence and questions arose about how he got the information, his story unraveled. Nunes story had been discredited. And even worse, he appeared to be colluding with the White House to obstruct progress in the investigation into Russian interference and keep the focus on Obama wiretapping, Susan Rice and illegal unmasking of Mike Flynn.
Nunes soon came under fire by the House Ethics Committee for discussing classified reports on television. He recused himself from the investigationon April 6, 2017 and was replaced as the chair of the committee by GOP Congressman Mike Conway.Nunes blamed left wing activist groups for the ethics charges and said, “The charges are entirely false and politically motivated and are being leveled just as the American people are beginning to learn the truth about the improper unmasking of the identities of U.S. citizens and other abuses of power,”
In late May, Nunes issued subpoenas to three intel agencies even though he had recused himself from the investigation. The reaction by his co-chair Adam Schiff was swift and unequivocal. Schiff said, “That authority should have been delegated to Mike Conaway in consultation with myself. That hasn’t happened yet, and I think that’s a violation of the recusal by the chairman.” Nunes’ subpoenas to the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency appear to be “part of the White House desire to shift attention away from the probe and onto the issue of unmasking,” Schiff speculated. “But Mr. Conaway and I are determined not to lose our focus on the Russian investigation, so we are not going to let the other stuff distract us,” he said.

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