Devin Nunes Caught On Tape Warning Donors That Mueller Might Not “Clear” Trump
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. walks out of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, March 22, 2017, to speak with reporters following a meeting with President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
NBC News just obtained a secret recording of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA-22) speaking at a Republican fundraiser on July 30 in Spokane, Washington. It reveals why House Republicans are working so hard to undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, how they plan to go about impeaching Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and that Nunes secretly believes President Trump is at legal risk.
Nunes spoke about his belief that the House is the only means to protect President Trump and notably expressed worry about a scenario where Mueller finds wrongdoing on the part of President Trump.
“So therein lies, so it’s like your classic Catch-22 situation where we were at a – this puts us in such a tough spot. If Sessions won’t unrecuse and Mueller won’t clear the president, we’re the only ones. Which is really the danger. That’s why I keep, and thank you for saying it by the way, I mean we have to keep all these seats. We have to keep the majority. If we do not keep the majority, all of this goes away.”
The recording goes on to show Nunes undercutting the administration’s false “collusion is not a crime” narrative.
“Now if somebody thinks that my campaign or Cathy’s campaign is colluding with the Chinese, or you name the country, hey, could happen, it would be a very bad thing if Cathy was getting secrets from the Portuguese, let’s say, just because I’m Portuguese, my family was. So Cathy was getting secret information from the Portuguese. You know, may or may not be unusual. But ultimately let’s say the Portuguese came and brought her some stolen emails. And she decided to release those. Okay, now we have a problem, right? Because somebody stole the emails, gave ‘em to Cathy, Cathy released ‘em. Well, if that’s the case, then that’s criminal.”
As we know, Mueller has indicted 25 Russians—13 Russian entities were indicted earlier this year for their propaganda campaign, and 12 Russian intelligence officers (GRU) were indicted for hacking the DNC, DCCC, and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign during the 2016 election and leaking through DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0. So what Nunes appears to be insinuating there is that when it comes to the dissemination of the hacked materials, Americans would be conspirators if they partook in that dissemination.
Nunes also explains why he wants to wait to attempt to impeach Rosenstein (an impeachment effort which is widely seen as being based on unsubstantiated claims).
So if we actually vote to impeach, okay, what that does is that triggers the Senate then has to take it up. Well, and you have to decide what you want right now because the Senate only has so much time. Do you want them to drop everything and not confirm the Supreme Court justice, the new Supreme Court justice? So that’s part of why, I don’t think you have, you’re not getting from, and I’ve said publicly Rosenstein deserves to be impeached. I mean, so, I don’t think you’re gonna get any argument from most of our colleagues. The question is the timing of it right before the election.”
You can listen to the tapes yourself here.
Context: From their false FISA surveillance scandal to their hearing with FBI Agent Peter Strzork, President Trump, House Republicans, and conservative media have long endeavored to undermine the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation (which he is a subject of). This effort has expanded into a broad initiative to discredit the DOJ, FBI, and the U.S. Intelligence Community as a whole.
The U.S. Intelligence Community concluded that Russia’s longstanding objective has been to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order and our faith in democratic institutions. For decades, Russian propaganda has aimed to stir racial divisions, attack the credibility of the U.S. government, and try to weaken western influence. Now, we have a President, backed by the full support of his party and propaganda arms like Fox News, executing on our foreign adversary’s primary objectives.
The investigation they’re trying to undermine, which President Trump called a witch hunt on the world stage, is a multi-faceted counterintelligence investigation that probes Russian interference, the Trump campaign’s potential collusion with Russia, and potential obstruction of Justice on the part of President Trump. It also probes financial crimes on the part of Trump’s associates as well as international corruption involving Russia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, etc. Before Rosenstein indicted 12 Russians last month, the investigation had already yielded at least 79 charges against 23 people or companies, 5 guilty pleas (3 of which came from Trump’s associates), and 1 person sentenced.
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