Republicans in Congress have continued, as time has gone on, to prove themselves far more eager to investigate supposed abuses of power at the Justice Department than they are to investigate the intrusion of a foreign power into our electoral system.
In that light, the House Intelligence Committee recently announced that they would be ending their arm of the Russia inquiry. Republicans on that committee produced a glaringly Trump-friendly report that has won them the president’s favor considering some of his tweets on the matter.
They’re continuing, however, with their investigation of the nation’s justice system, and in so doing, they’re giving off the strong appearance of destroying their party from the inside, a trend that will no doubt come back to haunt them come November.
Last Sunday on Fox, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) announced that he was preparing to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions himself in contempt of Congress over the Justice Department’s refusal to hand over information related to the start of the Russia investigation that he wants.
He began by referencing recent angry criticism from a certain judge of the investigation led by the Justice Department’s Special Counsel Robert Mueller, saying:
‘This is the ongoing problem we have with the special counsel. We found out Friday from the judge [that] it kind of looks like this whole investigation has gone off the rails. Now, what we’ve been investigating in the House Intelligence Committee — is FISA abuse and other matters involving the beginning of what is called a counterintelligence investigation.’
“FISA abuse” covers Republicans’ allegation that the Justice Department was wrong in using the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to conduct surveillance on former Trump associate Carter Page. The act was also used as the basis for surveillance of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who is the only one to have so far faced charges from Special Counsel Mueller and declined to cooperate.
Nunes is seemingly furious that the Justice Department doesn’t want to accommodate his questionably founded investigation, explaining to the Fox hosts as follows:
‘The only thing that’s left that we can do is we have to move quickly to hold the attorney general of the United States in contempt and that’s what I’m going to press for this week… We’ve asked for very important information, it’s still classified… But because this is so important, I’m not going to take any excuse to say, “Oh we’re harming national security.”‘
He’s literally being explicit here that he doesn’t care if the information he wants would harm national security if it got out. It’s convenient for him to make his true allegiances to Donald Trump and his associates above actual issues of national security clear.
Check out the video of his appearance on Fox, conducted via the telephone, below.
https://youtu.be/3MtCx2ydF_c
Nunes has faced scrutiny in the past for his cooperation with the Trump team in the midst of the ongoing Russia investigation, stepping back from his own committee’s main, now concluded Russia investigation in light of that.
How far his efforts get at keeping his Trump-serving investigation of the Justice Department alive via holding Jeff Sessions in contempt of Congress remains to be seen.
Featured Image via Alex Wong/ Getty Images
