The time has come to tear the paper off the package of excrement Donald Trump’s White House and Republican leadership in the House of Representatives decided to try and sell to the American people instead of giving us an actual investigation into the connection between Trump and Russia.
Thanks to some excellent reporting from the Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker, we now know that the administration, working hand in hand with House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes, decided last Monday–the same day FBI Director James Comey testified there had been no wiretapping of Trump and that an active investigation of the Trump-Russia matter was underway–to shut down the hearings because they feared more damaging revelations would come to light.
“Since [Monday, March 20] Nunes and the White House have kicked up a cloud of peripheral issues that have distracted attention from Comey’s testimony and that of Michael Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency; Nunes and the Trump Administration have essentially shut down the investigation.”
As for proof of direct coordination between the White House and Nunes, we also have confirmation of that:
“The White House and Nunes were clearly coordinating this strategy. A few days before the hearing, Trump seemed to offer a preview of it. In an interview on Fox News, the President said that he ‘will be submitting things’ to Nunes’s committee very soon,’ and ‘perhaps speaking about this next week,’ adding that ‘you’re going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks.’”
That prediction from Trump played out exactly as he had described when, as part of the March 20 hearing, Nunes had this to say in his opening statement:
“Were the communications of officials or associates of any campaign subject to any kind of improper surveillance? The Intelligence Community has extremely strict procedures for handling information pertaining to any U.S. citizens who are subject even to incidental surveillance, and this committee wants to insure all surveillance activities have followed all relevant laws, rules, and regulations.”
From that point forward, the majority of the questions asked by Republicans on the committee also dealt with the predicate Nunes had laid down from the start: Trump was surveilled. This hearing is not about Trump-Russia, it’s about the lie Trump told which we intend to try and make a reality.
As you might expect, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee are extremely frustrated and suspect the reason for delay is to try and cover Trump’s tracks. As Connecticut Democrat Jim Himes noted that if indeed the White House was fearful of former acting Attorney General Sally Yates’ testimony–scheduled for this week–and told Nunes to block her, that makes him suspicious:
“Any blocking of anyone or anything simply stokes suspicion of what the Administration might be hiding.”
And yet when Nunes was called on to recuse himself from further participation in the committee’s activities, his spokesman commented:
“He’s not recusing. It’s all just politics.”
If it’s all just politics, then why the delays, why the lying, why the obvious coordination between Trump and Nunes?
It’s not politics. It’s Republican treason.
This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org