McCain talks. He doesn’t act in good faith. He voted for all of Trump’s nominees. 80 years old, his last term, a sullied reputation to repair… and he caves in every time. A sad end to such an impressive man.
Hey, you might be on to something here. Nunes did say most of the names were masked in the intelligence reports, but he could “figure out” by context who some of them were. If they happened to be HIS conversations that were recorded … it doesn’t take too much brain power for him to “figure out” this masked Trump transition team member was, you know, himself.
(I will let the Teeming Millions come up with their own brain power jokes for Nunes. You’re welcome.)
This story in The Daily Beast explains a little bit about how Nunes got this not-new-not-information, and that’s an odd tale in itself. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/24/devin-nunes-vanished-the-night-before-he-made-trump-surveillance-claims.html
Nunes and “a senior committee staffer” (I presume the committee here is the Intelligence Committee he chairs) were taking an Uber when Nunes received a “communication” (text? phone call?) on his phone.
Nunes “abruptly” left the Uber, leaving his own staffer (A third person? In the car?) “in the dark about his whereabouts” for the evening.
When Nunes held the first of his press conferences the next day, none of his staff (supposedly) knew what he was going to say. At this presser, Nunes said he had seen “dozens of (US intelligence) reports” and complained that individuals in the reports were identified and/or identifiable when they should have been masked.
He then went to the White House, and after that held the second press conference.
Nunues said “I’m the only one who’s seen the documents, as far as I know,” and hasn’t shared the source of the documents he claims to have seen with anyone on his staff or the committee. He also said he got the mysterious information legally.
This article quotes a lawyer, Bradley Moss, who specializes “in national security clearances” as saying that classified material must be viewed in a secure setting, that there are only a few of them in the area, and that logs are kept about who enters them. So, I’m pretty sure that being able to narrow down where Nunes went can be done- IF he went to one of these secure locations.
However, the article suggests Nunes may have received this information from someone in the White House. To support this clam, the article points out that Trump said during a Fox interview a week ago that he has some stuff he plans to give to the Intelligence Committee ‘next week’. I geuss the article is suggesting Trump (or someone close to him) called Nunes to the White House to come see their collection of paperwork.
This seems sensible to me.
Spicer says he doesn’t know where Nunes got this mysterious info. I guess this means that if Nunes did get this info-not-info from Trump, it will be another case of an attempt at insulating the Trump/the White House with ‘plausible deniability.’
Spicer can just say “Oh, nobody told me anything. I, personally, didn’t know that Nunes came to the White House after hours and looked at these (dozens of) classified documents with Trump (or someone close to him) and I’m don’t know if this occurred in a secure setting, either.”
I just can’t figure Nunes’s angle on this.
He was very clearly not interested in investigating the Trump/Russia stuff.
I’m pretty sure the weirdo press conferences were about his trying to give Trump cover for his claim that Obama wiretapped him. It seems like Trump or someone close to him called Nunes and said “Hey, get on over here and I’ll show you what I got that can be construed as Obama “wiretapping” me/Trump so you can take it public. Then pretend to come brief me and no one will suspect it was me. come now!”
I’m not sure Nunes wanted to do this, which would explain why he did such a shitty job of it. But if he was instructed to this ‘from on-high’, he probably didn’t have much choice about it.
Or maybe he’s trying to wreck the Intelligence Committee. Nunes seems like kind of a nut, but he has been in DC long enough to have a feel for how things are done.
I’m not sure he’s really all that big a Trump fan. I think he has a bad case of “Well, we are in this bed together and your the top, so I will do what I can.”