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VDH - Demonization of Nunes Is a Window Into Our Times
[Real Clear Politics] Much of what we now know about the unethical and often illegal behavior of the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency and Department of Justice emerged due to the efforts of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Its chairman during its stunning disclosures has been Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who in turn has been constantly demonized for his efforts.Yet without the committee's digging, Americans would not have known that Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid for an unsubstantiated 2016 dossier on Donald Trump compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. Prior to the committee's work, we did not know that the FBI and Justice Department used unverified information from the Steele dossier to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing for the surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Without the committee's disclosures, Americans would not have had any idea that Bruce Ohr, who once ranked fourth in the Department of Justice hierarchy, coordinated opposition research on Trump with Steele, the FBI and Fusion GPS. Ohr took this unethical step because his wife was working for Fusion GPS -- a fact that was withheld on federal disclosure forms. The Nunes-led committee also uncovered the names of prominent FBI and DOJ officials -- including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Rod Rosenstein and Sally Yates -- who had approved FISA court warrant applications that were based on the largely discredited Steele dossier. Most dramatically, we learned that members of the Obama administration had unmasked the names of U.S. citizens swept up in government surveillance. Many of those names were illegally leaked to the press. This disclosure forced former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power and former National Security Adviser Susan Rice to confess that they had requested most of the unmaskings. Rice had previously denied it. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence also confirmed that FBI agents had interviewed former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and did not think he had lied to them concerning his contact with a top Russian diplomat. No one so far has refuted the committee's findings. Yet Chairman Nunes has become the subject of unprecedented venom, largely because a spate of further embarrassing scandals at the FBI, DOJ and CIA have resulted from his committee's findings. Posted by: Besoeker 2018-09-15 |
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