In recent weeks, California Republican and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes has again found himself at the center of media coverage related to the Russia scandal.
He produced a memo that was recently declassified by the president alleging surveillance abuses at the FBI perpetrated against the Trump team. He’s claimed, based on his evidence that both Democrats and the FBI claim leaves out important points, that the FBI unjustly conducted surveillance on former Trump associate Carter Page in the end of 2016 and beginning of 2017.
There is, again, more to the story than this, but that hasn’t stopped Rep. Nunes, President Trump, and other allies of the president from pushing the “Nunes memo” as the complete vindication of the president’s team in the Russia scandal.
Among other issues, the Russia investigation doesn’t hinge on that surveillance of Page; there are other issues that led to it as well.
Considering this fact, it’s unsurprising that Nunes has borne the brunt of a significant bit of negative news coverage in recent weeks, but like the Trump shill he is, he’s responded to that negative news coverage with calls of “fake news!”
Now, however, POLITICO is reporting that Nunes has taken his claims of fake news to a new level, choosing to dismiss mainstream media to the point of having had his own “news” website created.
The site is called The California Republican, and in an apt metaphor for Nunes’ activities in Congress, as of mid-Sunday morning the site was down due to “maintenance downtime or capacity problems” after the expected pressure was put on the site’s capacity following the publication of POLITICO‘s story.
The site, funded by Nunes’ campaign committee, includes — or, pending how well it’s able to recover from the trafiic influx, included — headlines like “CNN busted for peddling fake news AGAIN!,” “California’s budget future isn’t as good as it looks” and “Billions of dollars later, Democrats and the LA Times start to see the light on high-speed rail.”
Also included on the site early Sunday was a story titled “Understanding the process behind #ReleaseTheMemo,” a story featured — intermittently dead link and all — in a post on the site’s Facebook page.
The Facebook page for “The California Republican” only has about 3,600 likes, and POLITICO notes that Nunes is one of the gradually fewer and fewer Congressional Republicans who isn’t really struggling to get re-elected this fall.
Yet the House Intel Chairman has made this site anyway; he’s that dedicated to the Trumpian cause of fighting the mainstream media.
Like a petulant child, Nunes’ office wouldn’t provide a comment to POLITICO about the matter; Nunes’ chief of staff Anthony Ratekin quipped: “Until Politico retracts its multitude of fake stories on Congressman Nunes, we will not go on the record.”
The representative has, however, recently appeared on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show to whine about “fake news,” telling the incendiary radio host:
‘Almost every story is fake news… Almost every story that runs about me is fake. I mean, it’s unbelievable the stuff that is out there.’
Nunes’ comment that “almost every story is fake news” is disturbingly broad and childishly dismissive, but it’s just like something his idol would say.
The president, of course, has made it clear that if he doesn’t like a story, then boom, it’s fake news.
Featured Image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images
