Devin’s curious blind spot
by digby
Devin Nunes was very agitated this week-end over the fact that the FBI investigated suspicions that foreign agents were infiltrating a presidential campaign. Very agitated. He’s not the only one. The whole right wing and more are very upset to learn that the government looked into this evidence before the election which, by the way, turned out to be true.
Nunes said he and his colleagues have been troubled by reports and indications that sources may have been repeatedly reaching out to Trump campaign members and even offering aides money to encourage them to meet. The president, he said, has ample reason to be angry and suspicious.
“If you are paying somebody to come talk to my campaign or brush up against my campaign, whatever you call it, I’d be furious,” Nunes said.
Marcy Wheeler nails exactly what’s so curious about Devin’s reaction to this particular story:
That Nunes thinks Trump should be outraged about this one incident is particularly notable, given that neither Nunes nor anyone else running cover for the Trump administration has ever expressed similar outrage about all the Trump aides that other countries were dangling money and other goods to brush up against. Those include (and this list is far from comprehensive):
- Russian academics paying Carter Page to speak in Moscow
- A pro-Russian Syrian group paying Don Jr to speak in Paris
- Multiple Russian banks floating massive amounts of support to Jared
- Russia’s RT paying Mike Flynn to appear at an event with Putin
- Turkish pass-throughs paying Flynn to make a movie
- Saudi, Israeli, and Emirati sources offering campaign assistance
- Oleg Deripaska offering to forgive Paul Manafort’s $20 million debt for updates on the Trump campaign
- Russians offering dirt on Hillary to get a meeting with Trump’s campaign manager, son, and son-in-law
I mean, even the Carter Page Moscow trip was more lucrative than the Papadopoulos research. And the other valuable things offered to campaign aides, by spooked-up sources from a range of countries, were tens or millions of dollars more valuable than what Halper offered, usually without any legit purpose tied to it.
And yet the only intelligence source that Nunes has expressed any outrage about — the only one! — is one associated with the United States, a person with long ties to the Republican party.
I don’t know what motivates Nunes on this. But I think Wheeler might be on to something else too. In this post she notes that Nunes’ midnight ride scandal was all about the “unmasking scandal” that tied into a curious visit to the US by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan who had a secret meeting with Flynn, Kushner, and Bannon in NY. She speculates:
Today’s NYT scoop revealing that the Trump campaign colluded not just with Russians, but also Saudis, Emirates, and Israelis explain why the discovery of the later meetings was so dangerous: because it would reveal other efforts Trump made to sell out American foreign policy…
This puts the unmasking panic — and Devin Nunes’ role in it — in entirely new light. It’s not just that Seychelles meeting in the transition period — it’s this earlier meeting, where a bunch of autocrats got the candidate’s son to agree to collude on the election.Which makes me wonder, how would Trump Transition Official Devin Nunes know that? When Nunes manufactured a totally bogus unmasking scandal, did he know of these earlier meetings showing illegal collusion?Update: I realize, now, that Nunes’ unmasking panic may actually have served as a giant red flag for Mueller that there were aspects of the Trump team’s dealings with UAE and Israel that were of acute concern to the team. Well done Devin!
There is more at emptywheel, well worth reading all of it.
It wouldn’t be the first time Devin screwed up. It’s kind of his specialty.
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