This morning I addressed leaked audio of Devin Nunes talking among high-end dinner guests for Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers. It seems that I might have buried the lede, or at least there were far more possible ledes than I knew.
Nunes said straight out that the Republicans must hold the House in order to BLOCK any impeachment charges against Trump. No qualifiers involved. The House Must BLOCK, ANY charges.
That did not sit well with CNN counterintelligence analyst Phil Mudd who exploded upon hearing the revelations.
Before we get to the explosion, we must admit that Nunes did apparently admit that collusion – aka conspiracy – is a crime, but he then went ahead and defined it so narrowly that it could near never be proven. Additionally, he never acknowledged that the finding and proof of a crime should lead to impeachment. While that may be true with a very small crime, we’re talking about collusion with a foreign adversary.
Rawstory did an excellent job in breaking down the dialogue and should be read in full after this report:
“Are you kidding me?” the ex-CIA agent asked incredulously before launching into a tirade against Nunes for conducting conducting such a softball investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.
Mudd then took a hanging curveball and hit it 500 feet over the deck and into the parking lot.
“Look at the Senate Intel Committee, led by Republican Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) very honorably looking at the Russia process and saying why don’t we consider a fact,” Mudd continued. “Devin Nunes is saying, ‘I don’t care what [special counsel Robert] Mueller finds, we’re supposed to be a block on the Mueller process.’”
He finished by noting that the Senate got this right (not without fits and starts, but yes, relatively speaking), but that the House never got close.
Perhaps Mudd has forgotten that Nunes worked as an official member of the Trump transition team. In that dual capacity, working for the Trump team and then the lead investigator into activities that occurred – in part – during the transition, Nunes made a fool of himself getting caught essentially planting evidence and recused himself from the investigation …for about two weeks. At that point he began to slowly work himself back into the investigation step by step. How that happened, I’ll never know.
When judges, policemen, even Attorney Generals (credit where due, Sessions has stuck to doing the right thing and it is important to acknowledge when Trump administration officials do act honorably), when those lower down on the food chain recuse themselves for personal reasons, 99.9% of them stick with it honorably.
It makes sense that a CIA or FBI agent would feel the most anger about abuse of process like this. Both agencies are loaded with personnel who are lifers, people who work there in and out of administrations from both parties. These are real people – generally very good people – I have worked with quite a few over the year. They, too, having political leanings. Yet their job requires them to put those aside for the good of the country. Given that it is part of their job, they are among the people most qualified to feel extremely angry when a congressman cannot shake his political priorities, even to save the country from a possible Russian agent/influence in the oval office.
See the video below:
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