Nunes’s
Bias Exposed, Confirms Need for Independent Investigation
Congressman Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee, announced yesterday that he is backing down from his
assertion that Donaald Trump and his aides were monitored by U.S. intelligence
services.
A spokesman added that Nunes needed to obtain documents from
the intelligence community before he could assess if Trump or his associates
had been monitored. As for Donald Trump's
unhinged assertion that Obama wiretapped him, Nunes repeated what he has said
previously, telling reporters, "That didn't happen."
The allegation is merely about “incidental collection," meaning that it occurred incidentally during the surveillance of foreign
intelligence targets, not the direct monitoring of domestic targets like Trump,
his campaign, or his transition team. Electronic monitoring requires warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court if the
foreigners are in the United States or if a conversation crosses U.S.
communication systems. However, Republican
political hacks gladly lied about the matter for political gain. On Thursday, the Republican Congressional
Campaign Committee sent out an email about Nunes' remarks with the subject
line, "Confirmed: Obama Spied on Trump." Now we see that the Republicans were
spreading a lie, and Nunes was merely creating an opportunity to spread the propaganda.
Nunes still has not identified the source of his
information. Also, without explanation, he canceled next week's open committee hearing and scheduled a closed session, depriving the American people of their right to know more about Trump's collusion in the Russian cyberwar against the US.
The entire role of Nunes in this affair is highly
suspicious. Without telling his
committee, Nunes rushed to the White House last week and later announced that
he had told “President” Trump that US intelligence agencies had picked up
conversations of Trump and his campaign associates as “incidental collection”
during surveillance of other targets. Nunes
is supposed to be investigating Trump, not giving him advance notice of
information to be placed before the committee.
Nunes later apologized for a bad decision, but had already exposed
himself as either lacking judgment or a Trump agent, or both.
All of this foolishness shows that Nunes is totally
unqualified. Time after time, he makes
bad decisions, shows bias for Trump, and shows no cognizance of the gravity of the
national security matters before the House Intelligence Committee.
The only solution is an independent investigative commission,
totally out of the hands of biased Republican hacks and incompetent fools like
Nunes.
