GOP/INTELLIGENCE/NATIONAL SECURITY/OBAMA/RUSSIA/WIRETAPPING/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Representative Devin Nunes, the California Republican who is chairman of a House panel investigating Russian interference in the presidential election, may have dealt his own inquiry a fatal blow on Wednesday [3-22-17].
Armed with intelligence that some Republicans said bolstered President Trump’s widely disputed claim of being wiretapped by the Obama administration, Mr. Nunes bypassed Democrats and went directly to the White House. The new information, Mr. Nunes said, showed that American intelligence agencies monitoring foreign officials may have ‘incidentally’ picked up communications of Trump transition team members.
The move angered Democrats who said that Mr. Nunes’s attempt to buttress Mr. Trump’s accusation raised questions about his ability to conduct an impartial bipartisan investigation.
The House Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, Representative Adam Schiff of California, issued a challenge, saying that Mr. Nunes had to decide whether he was chairman of an independent investigation or ‘is going to act as a surrogate of the White House, because he cannot do both.’ “
-Emmarie Huetteman and Michael S. Schmidt, “Nunes Puts Credibility of House Panel He Leads in Doubt,” The New York Times online, March 23, 2017