Nunes is out of the Russia probe, and the Susan Rice spin collapses
Jennifer Rubin writes in WaPo today:
President Trump’s wild accusation and the right-wing media’s eagerness to support the claims of the Trump White House, working in cahoots with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), that there was nefarious “unmasking” of Trump associates picked up in surveillance of Russian officials has proved to be a colossal flop. Nunes wound up discrediting himself and implicating White House staffers in a half-baked scheme to deflect attention from the president.
Right-wing outlets (from Fox News to Breitbart to the New York Post) took the bait from Nunes and his associates, dragging Susan Rice into the matter — without evidence of a crime. Indeed, no evidence of impropriety exists and no evidence ties Rice to the leaking of Michael T. Flynn’s name. Given that the White House does not want to release the documents shared with Nunes that allegedly provide the basis for its tale, we can surmise that Nunes really had no evidence of much of anything.
The blatant effort to confuse and distract from the biggest political scandal of our lifetimes — Russian efforts to manipulate our election process and potential coordination with the campaign of the beneficiary of Russia’s “active measures” — does not come as any surprise. However, certain right-wing media outlets’ willingness to echo Trump’s defamatory misdirection tactics remains as distressing as ever. (It was just this sort of echo chamber effect that Russia used during the campaign to help Trump, as Clint Watts recently explained.) Chin-stroking pundits were obliged to say, “Well, both these things are important” (as if the Rice narrative has a factual basis), and the damage thereby done. A serious investigation with extensive factual support becomes no more credible than Trump’s latest tweet.
The episode highlights a worrisome development with regard to our intelligence community. Jack Goldsmith and Benjamin Wittes of Lawfareblog.com explain we run the risk of undoing the “grand bargain” (i.e. intelligence services get robust powers in exchange for equally robust oversight) that allows our intelligence community to operate within a democratic government.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/04/06/susan-rice-is-a-pawn-in-trumps-effort-to-tear-down-the-system/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-c%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.dd20db2066b6I'm not a fan of Jennifer Rubin. If you've read her columns, I'm willing to bet that you're not either. But, on this one, she is right on target!
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