Devin Nunes Has Got Nothing (Long Version)

I'm guessing that at least 95% of the people posting to social media about the Nunes memo --- both the Trump-worshipers and the adults --- haven't actually read it.  Until a couple of hours ago, I was one of them.

But now I have read it, and it's exactly as much of a bust as the adults say it is.

On October 21, 2016 --- 18 days before the election --- the DOJ and FBI applied for and received approval from the FISA court to conduct surveillance on a guy named Carter Page.  One component of that application included Christopher Steele's investigation into Trump in 2016.  The Nunes memo asserts that Steele's information was "an essential part" of the application.

Steele was initially working for a company called Fusion GPS, and for 7 months in 2016, Hillary Clinton's campaign hired Fusion GPS to conduct research into Trump and his campaign.  So Steele's dossier can be viewed as a partisan document --- which doesn't necessarily mean that any of the information in it is wrong.  Steele himself has more than 20 years' experience in spy work with Great Britian, and even the Nunes memo acknowledges "Steele's past record of credible reporting".

All of this is uncontroversial and agreed-upon by all sides.  The 'bombshell' in the Nunes memo (according to Nunes and other Republicans) is that when the DOJ and FBI submitted their application, they neglected to inform the FISA court that the Steele dossier had been partly funded by the Clinton campaign.

Nunes admits that the Steele dossier wasn't the only reason for investigating Page, and that Steele has a history of credible reporting.  But Nunes alleges that the DOJ and FBI withheld the partisan funding behind the Steele dossier, and this:

1. Raise(s) concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain DOJ and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and
2. Represent(s) a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the FISA process.

Or in the words of the very stable genius: "Their [sic] was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction," and "the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on".

*sigh*

There is so much wrong with this.  Let's start with the fact that multiple sources are refuting Nunes claim that the FISA court was not informed of the partisan funding behind Steele's research.  (UPDATE: Holy hell, even Nunes and Gowdy are now admitting that a footnote in the application explicitly called out the partisan nature of Steele's dossier.  So there's literally NOTHING to this memo). Next, let's move on to the fact that Nunes himself never read the FISA application, so he has no direct knowledge of what is or is not in it.  For that, we have to rely on Trey Gowdy, the Republican chair of the oversight committee, who is the only member of Congress to review the classified memo first-hand.

For his part, while Gowdy voted to release the memo to the public, he is also on record stating that he is "100 percent confident in Special Counsel Robert Mueller.  The contents of this memo do not - in any way - discredit his investigation".

Next, let's turn to poor, oppressed Carter Page.  I don't know what evidence was listed in the FISA application apart from the Steele dossier (and neither does Nunes, and neither does Trump, and neither do the 30 million Trump-worshipers on social media blathering on about the 'deep state' and other nonsense), but there are a lot of possibilities.

We know that the Russians attempted to recruit Page as an intelligence asset as long ago as 2013.  And a FISA warrant had previously been issued for surveillance on Page in 2014.  Not only does this demonstrate that the DOJ and FBI had sufficient evidence to support a FISA application even without the Steele dossier, it ALSO shows that their primary interest was in Page himself, not Trump.  Which significantly undermines the argument that this is really all just a "Russian Witch Hunt" to undermine Trump.

Also, the Nunes memo acknowledges that the FISA warrant to investigate Page was renewed 3 times (by law, such warrants must undergo a separate approval process every 90 days to remain in effect).  Which means that FOUR SEPARATE FISA court judges agreed that the surveillance of Page was warranted (and despite what some folks are posting on Twitter, every judge on the FISA court is there because Republican Supreme Court Chief John Roberts put them there.  So don't go bashing the judges as agents of the 'deep state').

Finally, the idea that the 'deep state' was investigating Carter Page to undermine Trump is absurd, if for no other reason than the timing.

Nunes and Trump's other Republican loyalists want you to believe that, 18 days before the election, the FBI held the Steele dossier with allegations of Trump's collusion with Russia, and decided that the best way to keep him out of the White House was --- to file a secret request to conduct surveillance of someone marginally associated with the campaign.  Does that sound like a sure-fire way to insure Trump's defeat?

No, if they really wanted to hurt Trump, they would have publicly announced that they were opening an investigation into the possibility of Trump's ties to Russia, and also his fondness for hiring prostitutes to perform a golden showers urination show.  But instead, James Comey announced "the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to" --- but in fact, actually had nothing to do with --- the overblown investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server.

I think Trump-worshipers can rest easy.  Either there's no 'deep state' conspiracy to undermine his presidency (spoiler alert: there's not) --- OR, there IS such a conspiracy, but the DOJ and FBI are just really, really bad at it.

Either way, Trump and his Republican enablers in Congress and on social media should all just shut the hell up and let Robert Mueller do his job.