The day before Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) revealed that conversations by Trump transition officials may have been inadvertently picked up by U.S. surveillance, he met with the information’s source at the White House, his spokesman said March 27, 2017.
You know things are looking grim for President Donald Trump when he starts tweeting about Hillary Clinton again. Monday evening he sounded trapped and wounded: “Why isn’t the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech.”
Trump’s tweet certainly appears to be an attempt to deflect attention and to shift discussion away from the newest revelation about the Trump Russia scandal. The Post reports:
“The Trump administration sought to block former acting attorney general Sally Yates from testifying to Congress in the House investigation of links between Russian officials and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, The Washington Post has learned, a position that is likely to further anger Democrats who have accused Republicans of trying to damage the inquiry.
“According to letters The Post reviewed, the Justice Department notified Yates earlier this month that the administration considers a great deal of her possible testimony to be barred from discussion in a congressional hearing because the topics are covered by the presidential communication privilege.”
That will strike many as a ham-handed attempt to interfere with the investigation. Moreover, it makes the decision House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. — who remains under fire for his bizarre secret trip to the White House to view alleged information from some unidentified source, which he still has not revealed to other members of the committee — made to cancel an open hearing look once again like water-carrying for the White House.
Nunes’ fondness for the cameras and determination to throw up dust on behalf of the president has already sparked calls from Democrats, including Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., for Nunes to recuse himself. “We’ve reached the point, after the events of this week, where it would be very difficult to maintain the credibility of the investigation if the chairman did not recuse himself from matters involving either the Trump campaign or the Trump transition team of which he was a member,” Schiff said.
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