“[Nunes] held not one, but two fairly breathless press conferences alleging … something, he couldn’t quite say what, about the intelligence community and the Trump transition, of which he was an executive member. Things that he had seen, but he could not describe, that made him feel alarm, that made him feel concern, that ought to make us all feel alarm and concern, and they certainly would make us feel those things if only we knew what these things were, but he would not tell us.“In fact, he did not even have those things in his possession, and he had not shown them to the rest of the people on his committee, who are participating in this investigation he’s supposed to be leading.”
It is exceedingly rare to see a powerful member of Congress, in the middle of an investigation into a serious scandal, commit an act of self-sabotage in such a dramatic fashion.It’s hard to even describe the point of Nunes’ little show yesterday afternoon. The GOP congressman apparently received classified information, which he was eager to share, that found there were incidental recordings of Trump transition officials, after the election but before the inauguration, during legal surveillance.Nunes couldn’t keep his story straight about whether Donald Trump was personally recorded. He couldn’t keep his story straight about whether the information was gleaned by way of the Russia investigation his committee is conducting. And he couldn’t keep his story straight about whether he actually had information, or whether he may receive it on Friday.Nunes, in between his two press conferences, briefed Trump on the information he claims to have received from officials in the Trump administration — in the process undermining his own investigation, stepping all over separation of powers, trashing the process he’s supposed to be honoring, and acting as if he were somehow a presidential employee — without bothering to talk to his colleagues on the House Intelligence Committee.In other words, Nunes not only a made a fool out of himself for reasons that no one can explain, he also effectively told the nation that his committee cannot be trusted to conduct a fair and impartial investigation into one of the era’s most important political scandals.Watching the developments unfold, it was hard to know whether to be outraged by Nunes’ irresponsible behavior or feel sorry for him after this pitiful display. The poor guy just made it painfully obvious to the entire political world that he’s been compromised and has no business leading the Intelligence Committee.Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told MSNBC yesterday that the House Intelligence Committee has lost “the credibility to handle this alone.” I’m hard pressed to imagine how anyone can disagree.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."