Rep. Devin Nunes, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, has reportedly apologized to Committee members after his highly unorthodox visit to the White House yesterday to share with President Trump his unsubstantiated charge that U.S. intelligence agencies spied on the Trump team and possibly even the president-elect himself during the transition period. Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democratic member of the Committee, told CNN this morning that it was not clear, precisely, what Nunes was sorry for, saying that Nunes apologized only “in a generic way.”
Apology or not, though, Nunes already has showed his hand: he is playing the role of White House defender rather than Congressional investigator, even as he purports to chairs an investigation into the administration’s possible collusion with Kremlin-led efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. Nunes’ “apology” is simply another move in the games he’s been playing all along, and another sign of just how much he has compromised his oversight role.
Nunes’ hollow and unspecific contrition to his colleagues fails to erase weeks of his efforts to help Trump by tacitly giving credence to the president’s absurd charge that former President Obama wiretapped him.
Nunes’ inability to properly carry out his oversight role was first made apparent in his reaction to Trump’s baseless accusation, made in a March 4 tweet, that Obama ordered Trump Tower “wires tapped.” Nunes told Fox News that there was no evidence to support Trump’s claim, but added that perhaps Trump was merely posing a question (he wasn’t). It could be, Nunes went on, “a valid question.” In essence, the lawmaker declined to shoot down Trump conspiracy theories by shrugging and implying, “well, maybe he has a point. Who’s to know?”
This week, FBI Director James Comey did lay the question to rest, in public testimony to Nunes’ committee: there was no evidence to support Trump’s accusation. Notwithstanding this definitive statement, that wasn’t the end of the matter for Nunes.
The House Oversight Chair yesterday revived claims that U.S. intelligence spied on the Trump team, and possibly Trump himself, by telling reporters that the intelligence community “incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition,” that there was little of intelligence value or even nothing related to Russia, and that “additional names of Trump transition team members were unmasked.” Nunes also briefed Trump at the White House.
In fairness, Nunes did admit last weekend that Trump’s claim was false, saying, “Was there a physical wiretap of Trump Tower? No there never was.” But yesterday he inexplicably reopened this can of worms by suggesting there was unspecified surveillance of another kind.
If there was any apparent purpose to Nunes’ foray yesterday, it was to give Trump further ammunition to claim that he is the victim of spying. Shortly after Nunes’ visit, Trump told TIME:
“House intelligence chairman Devin Nunes told reporters, wow. Nunes said, so that means I’m right, Nunes said the surveillance appears to have been … incidental collection, that does not appear to have been related to concerns over Russia.”
In other words, Trump, not unexpectedly, grabbed the lifeline Nunes had thrown him.
Given the gravity of the task entrusted to his committee, it’s alarming that Nunes seems to be taking his cues from Trump, instead of playing a leadership role. Where he is supposed to be conducting a bipartisan investigation and seeing where the evidence leads, Nunes scurried to the White House to feed the president’s hunger for nuggets of disinformation.
Nunes is in a position of real influence over whether Republicans exercise the oversight voters deserve when it comes to getting to the bottom of Russian meddling in our election. Despite his apology, his conduct is making it clear that Republicans have no intention of taking this responsibility seriously.