Discussion: Senate Intel Chair: 'The Unmasking Thing Was All Created By Devin Nunes'

[matthew1961]

Delayed response here. And I see that you answered your own question. In fact, I haven’t read any Seth tweets for months. But I do remember quite well that he was pushing the Mayflower quite heavily and even suggested at one point that the whole scandal be referred to as the “Mayflower affair.”

I’m with you on Sessions, sad to say. Hang in there Jeff, we’ve all got your back! (For a little while anyhow.)

On the other hand, if Sessions does resign I can’t believe that a new AG will be confirmed any time soon.

[ajm]

The House does not have sole power over Nunes. While the Constitution provides that legislators protected against arrest ‘during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place’ orating on the White House lawn is not Congressional debate.

[thunderclapnewman]

if Sessions does resign I can’t believe that a new AG will be confirmed any time soon.

No AG will be confirmed who doesn’t swear that he/she will not fire Mueller except for cause—and there is no cause.

[matthew1961]

Are you in the camp that Trump leaked the latest info on Sessions himself? I doubted it before, but after this morning’s tweets I’m beginning to think he did. It seems he imagines himself to be really clever in appearing to defend Sessions.

[ajm]

Pretending that you were Putin, who would you seek to corrupt?

Not sure if that makes the tinfoil tighter or looser.

[thunderclapnewman]

The man is everywhere!

.

[kenga]

That doesn’t answer the question, but you’ve a good point. (I think when this Congress opened, the majority put some significant limitations on the House Ethics committee, without actually eliminating it.)

And I’d forgotten the protection from arrest has limitations …
“They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance”.
I think, technically, a Rep or Senator could be arrested on the floor of whichever house if the charge was treason or a felony.

[milehigh_sdfan]

Orange County is finally beginning to progress,ever so slightly, the desert communities are hopeless I’m afraid. I’m down south in Issa’s district hoping we are finally pissed off enough to vote his criminal butt out of office.

[kevanlove]

Then Nunes did it to obstruct justice.

[nc_blue]

Helpful perspective. I’m new to NC politics having moved from a very blue state. I have been writing to my MoC pretty regularly expressing my dissatisfaction with their positions on most issues. He always writes back to explain his position. His role on the IC, his Nunes comment and his absence from the WH health care meeting has changed my opinion of him.

[ncsteve]

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like him and have voted against him in every election. He has shown an ideological pliability, morphing from moderate to hardliner to Trumper in successive elections which inform my belief that he is first and foremost dedicated to his own reelection.

But he’s no Tom Tillis or Virginia Foxx.

[yomomma2501]

Nunez is my Congressman here in Central California and I think we might be able to get rid of him in 2018.

[geofu54]

Are you in the camp…

Yes, absolutely. The thought instantly struck me and never had any doubt since. To me his “defending” Sessions is just yet another confirmation. He blames others for what he did, so that “defense” is the screaming tell.

[geofu54]

Yeah, this is what Comey was talking about… and it’s not like it was completely new. We KNEW it.

[rambunctious1]

So let me get this straight, Burr blows off the whole thing as just something Nunes cooked up, then immediately admits:

“clearly there were individuals unmasked. Some of that became public which it’s not supposed to…”

Anyone see just a WEE disconnect here? So there IS something to see here, and perhaps we shouldn’t be so hasty to move right along? And perhaps we should wait til AFTER the actual investigation to declare that this is nothing more than a creation of Nunes? After all, there are only some serious 4th Amendment issues in question here.

If this is how the chairman thinks, sounds like Rice got off unnecessarily easy.

[rambunctious1]

Yes, if only Holder had been half as eager to prosecute Wall Street criminals in the wake of the Great Mortgage Derivatives Swindle, as he is to push daggers into the backs of his political opponents. Why, we might have had something resembling justice back then!

[kenga]

Why do you presume that Rice was the one who made any unmasking public?

Further, Nunes behavior when he went panicked to the White House late at night, desperate to speak with someone(we don’t know whom, on record), raises the possibility that it was his name that was unmasked.
Which raises a question - why was he talking to someone for whom there was an open FISA warrant?
And another question - what was the topic in that conversation which led to such panic?

At the end of the day, there is an important detail that seems to have been neglected.
As National Security Advisor, Susan Rice was well within the scope of her duties to seek the identification of an American “incidentally collected” in the course of communication intercepts of a legitimate FISA target, if the facts warranted it. And, given that a judge approved the request, her request was found to be appropriate.

[ajm]

Any AG nominated will have sworn to Trump that he will fire Mueller.

[ajm]

Don’t be any sillier than you can help: Trump is a clear and present danger. 2008 is history,

[tena]

Any AG candidate who; has done that will not be confirmed.