Nunes Says He Will Hold Attorney General Sessions In Contempt of Congress

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As Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Devin Nunes (R – CA) has become a hero to Republicans and a laughingstock to Democrats. His committee’s “investigation” into the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia during the 2016 election was indeed a total joke, although Republicans (especially the president) loved it because it concluded that without a doubt there was absolutely NO collusion between Trump and Russia.

Of course everyone outside of Republican circles knows that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has found plenty of strong evidence of collusion and is just waiting for the right time to issue more indictments and make his findings known to the public.

But even though his committee’s investigation is “completed” Rep. Nunes is not content to fade from public view. So he called into the favorite right-wing media platform — Fox & Friends — on Sunday to set forth his latest brand of nonsense. On the show he said that this week Republicans in Congress will take action to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt of Congress.

In his telephone interview Nunes attacked the attorney general for “abuse” of FISA counterintelligence wiretaps “and other matters.”

Nunes is upset that the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has not complied with his request that they send him all the material in their files that they used to convince a federal judge to issue a FISA warrant against former Trump adviser Carter Page. GOP members of Congress have decided that trying to undercut the FISA warrant process, and accusing the DOJ of improprieties, is the best way to defend Trump & his friends from criminal prosecution. It won’t work, but they are hoping that at least their own political base of supporters will believe them.

Here is what Nunes said on Fox & Friends:

“The only thing that’s left that we can do is we have to move quickly to hold the attorney general of the United States in contempt and that’s what I’m going to press for this week. We’ve asked for very important information, it’s still classified. Because of the way they conducted this information, most of this information is classified. But because this is so important, I’m not going to take any excuse to say, ‘Oh we’re harming national security.’”

Nunes is obviously desperate, even though his gambit is doomed to fail. Two weeks ago, he sent Sessions a classified letter, which was ignored, and then he sent a subpoena, which has also been ignored. His latest threat will probably also fail.

The advantage that Jeff Sessions has over Devin Nunes is that Sessions knows the law, which he is forced to follow in his position as Attorney General. Nunes doesn’t know the law, and everything he does is based on politics. Sessions will win out here because if he gave in to Nunes’ demands he would violate the laws against disclosing classified information, and he is smart enough not to do that.

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Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.