Yesterday, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), went to the White House to disclose classified information that he was given by an unknown source with regards to the investigation into the Trump administration’s Russian connection. To say this was highly irregular is an understatement. Nunes has absolutely no experience in the intelligence community or military. He is not a lawyer; he has degrees in agricultural business. While Nunes has access to classified information, he does not have declassification authority, no one in congress does. There is a process for that. What is even more questionable is Nunes briefed the president who he is supposed to be investigating. As Eugene Robinson put it yesterday during a MSNBC panel discussion, that was like “Law and Order”s Lennie Briscoe telling the perp his fingerprints were on the weapon and you’d better leave town. he even held a press conference. Nunes did this without discussing this with any other members.
Adam Silverman at Balloon Juice explains further:
And that may, perhaps, explain why this morning Congressman Nunes disclosed, without authorization, classified information pertaining to US SIGINT collection. Congressman Nunes does not have declassification authority in regard to that information. He then went and briefed the President on what he had just leaked because he thought the President needed to know it. This is curious for two reasons. 1) This is not the job of a Congressman who is chairing a committee that oversees executive branch agencies and activities. 2) The President, as the President, has the ability to know anything he wants to know that is being done, or has been done, by the US Intelligence Community. That he did not seem to know this, that he does not seem to have been briefed on it, means that he and his subordinates either couldn’t be bothered knowing or, because of the counterintelligence investigation – its scope and who may be its targets – this information had been compartmented from the President to protect sources and methods. If it is the former, it shows how inept the President’s advisors and staff are. If it is the latter then Congressman Nunes has dug his hole even deeper. Interfering with and obstructing a Federal counterintelligence investigation is not something that the FBI looks kindly upon.
Moreover, the real takeaway for today is why the President and so many of his people were in ongoing contact with Russians and other foreign targets of both routine and specifically targeted US SIGINT collection.
Moreover, the real takeaway for today is why the President and so many of his people were in ongoing contact with Russians and other foreign targets of both routine and specifically targeted US SIGINT collection.
It is routine for the intelligence community to conduct surveillance of known bad actors. the surveillance that Nunes revealed was routine and the president’s team got caught because they were communicating with known bad actors. That isn’t surveillance; that’s called “incidental collection.” Nor does it vindicate Trump or validate his fake, malicious claim that Pres. Obama had Trump Tower “wire tapped,” a diversion from the real issue of Russian interference in last year’s election. Nor does it mean that Trump or his team were under surveillance. It just means they were talking to people who were.
This is supposed to be a non-partisan investigation, it long past obvious that it is not. It is time for a Watergate-like investigative panel of qualified outsiders and special prosecutor.
As for Nunes the ranking Democratic member of the Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, said, Nunes is either the chair of the committee or he the president’s surrogate. He cannot be both. This was a massive breach of protocol and security, an apology will not suffice. Nunes should resign as committee chair and from the committee.