House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes suggested Wednesday that Democrats are not serious about the ongoing investigation into Russia’s involvement in the election. Politico reports Nunes told NBC News, “We’re beginning to figure out who’s actually serious about the investigation because it appears like the Democrats aren’t really serious about this investigation.”
Fox News had a brief interview with Nunes outside his Capitol Hill office. “As far as I know they’ve done very little to even look through the documents that the intelligence agencies have provided,” Nunes said. He added, “At the end of the day here, we’re going to get to the truth and we’re going to find out who’s actually doing a real investigation. And you’ll find out that we are very much doing an investigation and have been for a long time.”
Asked about conflict with the House Intelligence Committee’s ranking member Adam Schiff, Nunes said, “We’re always concerned about this and we always want to keep the committee bipartisan but at the end of the day we’re going to do an investigation with or without them.” He continued, “If they want to participate that’s fine, but the facts of the matter are pretty clear that they have no…we don’t even know who their witnesses [are] that they want to call.” Nunes concluded saying to the Fox News reporter, “I would encourage you guys to go and start to follow them around and figure out who they want to bring in and interview.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmTYcXADxGY
Yesterday a Democratic member of the Intelligence Committee accused Nunes of being part of a White House-orchestrated cover-up. Other Democrats including ranking member Adam Schiff and minority leader Pelosi have called on Nunes to recuse himself. Meanwhile, Republicans including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz have stood by Nunes. Yesterday Chaffetz said calls for an investigation of Nunes by Democrats were “silly.”
That the case against Nunes is ultimately silly was made clear last night by a six-minute segment on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The segment featured the usual Jon Stewart-style hyperbole and gimmicks and culminated with Colbert using a chalkboard to draw a stick figure of Nunes with his head inside Trump’s posterior. The Democrats are pulling out all the stops against Nunes, but ultimately the stick-figure gag really does sum up their argument.
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