Can someone break down this whole Nunes Memo thing?

[John_Bredin]

@Captain_Amazing

The story, in brief, is that Nunes and a bunch of Rpublicans on the House Intelligence Committee had a secret working group (which they didn’t invite Democrats to) to investigate whether the FBI tried to interfere in the 2016 election to get Hillary elected.

So let me get this straight: prominent Republicans claim that the FBI is biased based on a text referring in jest to a secret exclusive committee, and so prominent Republicans investigate it with an actual secret exclusive committee? :rolleyes:

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@Captain_Amazing

The story, in brief, is that Nunes and a bunch of Rpublicans on the House Intelligence Committee had a secret working group (which they didn’t invite Democrats to) to investigate whether the FBI tried to interfere in the 2016 election to get Hillary elected. The working group then wrote a memo that Nunes is saying is proof that the FBI and the Obama Justice Department did bad things for Hillary, but he won’t release the memo or give it to the Justice Department because the FBI and Justice Department is full of Deep State people who hate Trump and will try to bury it.

I don’t think this is accurate.

Nunes wants to release the memo but the DOJ is opposed to releasing it because it contains classified info. It’s thought that Trump will possibly overrule those DOJ people.

And Nunes didn’t give it to the FBI and DOJ upfront because it didn’t contain anything they didn’t already know. (My impression is that the main source for all the info is not any independent detective work by Nunes, but rather things that they were told by the leaders of these various agencies when testifying before his committee. But even if that’s not correct, it’s being claimed at any rate that the bulk of this was things which were discussed with these leaders at those hearings.) The memo is alleged to be “explosive” from the perspective of the general public, but not to the leaders of these agencies.

[Czarcasm]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

I don’t think this is accurate.

Nunes wants to release the memo but the DOJ is opposed to releasing it because it contains classified info. It’s thought that Trump will possibly overrule those DOJ people.

And Nunes didn’t give it to the FBI and DOJ upfront because it didn’t contain anything they didn’t already know. (My impression is that the main source for all the info is not any independent detective work by Nunes, but rather things that they were told by the leaders of these various agencies when testifying before his committee. But even if that’s not correct, it’s being claimed at any rate that the bulk of this was things which were discussed with these leaders at those hearings.) The memo is alleged to be “explosive” from the perspective of the general public, but not to the leaders of these agencies.

And where did this version come from?

[Ravenman]

Sarah Sanders.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@Czarcasm

And where did this version come from?

It’s what I’ve read in MSM sources. But in looking around a bit, I can’t find it. So retract that until I have time to look further or until more info gets published.

[Sage_Rat]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

And Nunes didn’t give it to the FBI and DOJ upfront because it didn’t contain anything they didn’t already know.

And why did he refuse to show it to Richard Burr?

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

BTW, FWIW, my guess - based on comments from the various players who have seen the memo - is that there will be some disquieting things revealed in the memo (which may require some footwork by opponents) but nothing game changing.

[Czarcasm]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

BTW, FWIW, my guess - based on comments from the various players who have seen the memo - is that there will be some disquieting things revealed in the memo (which may require some footwork by opponents) but nothing game changing.

The people that have seen the memo tend to be the type of people that would sow discord to further a cause. Not really a reliable source of information.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

That would include the entire House of Representatives, apparently.

Perhaps so, but within the House there are more partisan people and more sober and thoughtful ones.

[Sage_Rat]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

BTW, FWIW, my guess - based on comments from the various players who have seen the memo - is that there will be some disquieting things revealed in the memo (which may require some footwork by opponents) but nothing game changing.

Why did Paul Ryan allow himself to be a signatory to the DoJ letter asking for the memo to be shown to the DoJ and FBI before even considering release?

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

Good article (I assume :)) by the NYT. TLDR quote:

@NYT

People familiar with the report said that its main allegation was that law enforcement officials failed to adequately explain to the intelligence court judge that they were relying in part on research by an investigator, Christopher Steele, that had been financed by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. That, the report is said to claim, suggests that the judge was misled.

If this is correct, then the devil will be in the details, primarily the extent to which the FISC application relied on the dossier.

@Sage_Rat

Why did Paul Ryan allow himself to be a signatory to the DoJ letter asking for the memo to be shown to the DoJ and FBI before even considering release?

Why not? What’s your point?

[I’m not familiar with Ryan’s motivations specifically. As I understand the general issue, there’s a tradeoff between the value in the public seeing the memo versus the harm in declassifying information - which was presumably classified for a reason. Presumably, Ryan thinks these agencies should be allowed to weigh in on the declassifying aspect before that decision is made, which seems reasonable to me. (Others believe these agencies will be biased against declassifying, because the memo alleges wrongdoing by these very agencies.) But that’s speculation.]

[gnoitall]

Guiding principle of Nunez’s work on this topic:

@Very Wise Lawyer

If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither on your side, pound the table.

What you see here is a bunch of table-pounding.

[Ravenman]

If there were a legal issue with how DOJ has investigated matters, based on highly classified intelligence, a sane person would turn the matter over to an IG for further action. An IG can both protect the intelligence and recommend criminal or administrative actions.

But no, this is all about Nunes having an inexcusable conflict of interest, and seeking to defend his patron.

Can you imagine the brain hemmorage conservatives would have if Mueller had been involved in the Clinton campaign to the extent that Nunes was involved in Trump’s?

[elucidator]

@Ravenman

…Can you imagine the brain hemmorage conservatives would have if Mueller had been involved in the Clinton campaign to the extent that Nunes was involved in Trump’s?

Why, yes, yes I can! And thanks!

[Chisquirrel]

Why are we relying on a memo “written” by Dedicated Trump Lackey Devin Nunes, he of the Trump Executive Transition Team, He Who Runs Back And Forth To The White House About Investigations, he who discloses classified material in PRESS BRIEFINGS?

Nunes is a partisan hack who would be best described by Stephen Colbert, if you replaced Putin with Trump.

[jasg]

Jim Wright at Stonekettle Station has a good breakdown.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

House intel committee votes to release classified memo

Brushing aside opposition from the Department of Justice, Republicans on the House intelligence committee voted Monday to release a classified memo that purports to show improper use of surveillance by the FBI and the Justice Department in the Russia investigation.

Privately, Trump has been fuming over the Justice Department’s opposition to releasing the memo, according to an administration official not authorized to discuss private conversations and speaking on condition of anonymity.

At the behest of Trump, White House chief of staff John Kelly and other White House officials have been in contact with Justice Department officials in the past week to convey the president’s displeasure with the department’s leadership on the issue specifically, the official said. In a series of calls last week, Kelly urged the Justice officials to do more within the bounds of the law to get the memo out, the official said.

In the hours before Monday’s vote, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders underscored the administration’s position, saying Trump favors “full transparency.”

Well, maybe not full transparency.

Democrats are livid about the memo, which they say omits crucial facts and should not be selectively released. They have pushed back on Republican criticism of the FBI, saying it is an attempt to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and whether Trump’s campaign was involved. The probe has already resulted in charges against four of Trump’s former campaign advisers and has recently moved closer to Trump’s inner circle.

The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, California Rep. Adam Schiff, said last week that Democrats on the panel had put together their own memo.

They voted not to release that memo tho, at least not at this time.

And lots of people, Republicans even, don’t want the Nunes memo released.

While Trump’s White House signaled he would likely support the memo’s release, his Justice Department has voiced concerns. In a letter to House intelligence committee Chairman Devin Nunes last week, Justice officials said releasing the classified memo could be “extraordinarily reckless” and asked to review it.

Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote Nunes that given the panel’s role in overseeing the nation’s intelligence community, “you well understand the damaging impact that the release of classified material could have on our national security and our ability to share and receive sensitive information from friendly foreign governments.”

Some senators have expressed concern about the release as well. But John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican and a member of that chamber’s intelligence committee, said last week that Nunes and the Justice Department need to work out their differences. On Sunday, Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina both said they don’t think the memo should be released.

“No, I don’t want it released yet,” Graham said on ABC’s “This Week.” ″I don’t. I want somebody who is without a political bias to come in and look at the allegations that I have seen.”

Anyway, we’ll all get to read it for ourselves by this time next week, prolly.

[Snarky_Kong]

I’m afraid we’re going to see the memo as a pretext to purge the DOJ and FBI of people that aren’t Trump loyalists.

[jayjay]

America: GOP Coup 2018. We had a good run, I guess.

[Xema]

@Snowboarder_Bo

They voted not to release that memo tho, at least not at this time.

I saw a report that said the Committee voted unanimously to make the Dem “counter-memo” available to all House members (same as was done for the original memo).

Is this incorrect?