Spilling the beans to the White House yesterday, 43-year-old Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) told 70-year-old President Donald Trump that his campaign was under intel surveillance during the transition. After denouncing Trump’s March 5 tweet accusing former President Barack Obama of spying on Trump Tower, Nunes realized that, however imprecise Trump’s tweet, the government indeed spied on Trump and his campaign associates unrelated to the Russian story. Nunes’s Democratic co-chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) couldn’t fathom Nune’s unilateral move notifying the White House. Schiff has become one of the most anti-Trump, partisan members of Congress, convinced, that he’d dig up enough dirt to impeach the president. Schiff proclaimed today that he’s seen more than circumstantial evidence against Trump.
At the heart of investigations in House and Senate Intelligence Committees is the unfounded allegation that Trump or his campaign staff colluded with the Russians to torpedo the 2016 presidential campaign of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hillary tried to make the case in the last presidential debate Oct. 19, 2016 in Las Vegas, calling Trump a “Russian puppet.” Testifying before the House Intelligence Committee March 20, 56-year-old FBI Director James Comey went out on a limb, insisting Russian President Vladimir Putin held a vendetta against Hillary, hoping Trump would win the election. Comey insisted Putin helped Trump but couldn’t explain why Hillary won nearly 3 million more popular votes than Trump. Comey opined before the intel committee without supporting his statements with any facts, only wild conjecture about Putin’s feelings toward Hillary.
Schiff has jumped on former Hillary Campaign Chairman John D. Podesta bandwagon, insisting that Putin won Trump the election. Before the Putin theory, Podesta blamed Comey for losing Hillary the election. Schiff’s part of the anti-Trump cabal, incapable of stepping aside the Democrat mission to impeach Trump. When Nunes went to Trump to tell give specifics about the spying admitted to by Comey March 20, Schiff cried foul, slamming Nunes for bypassing the committee. “I don’t want to get into specifics but I will say that there is evidence that is not circumstantial and is very much worthy of an investigation,” said Schiff, giving no facts about his claims of direct evidence of Trump’s collusion with Putin. Schiff gives no details because after an eight- month investigation, the FBI has nothing. When Schiff talks of direct evidence, he points to former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
Flynn was forced to resign Feb. 13 for allegedly not informing Vice President Mike Pence that he talked to Russian Amb. Sergey Kislyak Dec. 29 Obama’s sanctions. When it came out, he talked to Kislyak about Obama expelling 35 Russian diplomats, slapping more sanctions of the Kremlin. As NSA, it was Flynn’s job to defuse a potentially incendiary situation. It’s inconceivable that Pence didn’t know what Flynn talked to Kislyak about yet Flynn took the fall. Why Flynn didn’t admit to his discussions or meetings with Kislyak underscores the McCarthy-like Russian paranoia sweeping Capitol Hill. Trump campaigned on a promise to improve U.S.-Russian relations, something now branded as treason by war hawks like Sen. John McCain (R-Az.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), doing everything possible to block Trump’s attempts to improve relations.
Slamming Nunes for informing the White House about government spying on Trump and his campaign, McCain acts more like a partisan Democrat in his new role as media Trump-basher-in-chief. McCain urged the investigation to shift to an Independent Counsel, claiming the House intel committee can no longer work in a bipartisan way. Why McCain sees Nunes’s disclosure to the White House a breach of bipartisanship is anyone’s guess. “From what I know right now it looks the incidental collection, we don’t know exactly how that was picked up, but we’re trying to get to the bottom of it,” said Nunes, referring to how intel agencies legally spied on Trump and his campaign team. Schiff’s been protecting Obama against the growing possibility that he was informed and signed off spying on Trump. Incidental spying on foreign agents is legal even when picking up data on U.S. citizens.
Partisan zealotry drives current investigation on Trump’s ties to Moscow in the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Without Comey after eight months offering a scintilla of evidence of Trump campaign coordination with Russia, Schiff’s statements about having more than circumstantial information refer only to statements made by Flynn to Congress and the media. Lying about his discussions with Kislyak is what Schiff calls direct evidence warranting investigation. Whatever Flynn said to Kislyak, it was not about thanking the Kremlin for helping Trump win the election. “No longer does Congress have credibility to hand this alone, and I don’t say that lightly,” said McCain, urging the Justice Department to appoint and Independent Counsel. If the FBI had any evidence of Trump collusion with Russia, they would have shared it. Appointing an Independent Counsel won’t change the facts.
