Good morning. Don’t ever forget Paul Ryan is the key enabler of this Devin Nunes mess. Nunes remains able to do this because Ryan hasn’t replaced him.
NY Times editorial:
The Republican Plot Against the F.B.I.
It would be nice to treat Mr. Trump, Mr. Nunes and their cohort as the junior high school pranksters they resemble, but what they’re doing — cynically undermining the nation’s trust in law enforcement, fostering an environment of permanent suspicion and subterfuge — is far more dangerous.
The question is whether there are any adults left in the G.O.P. The evidence so far is not encouraging, notwithstanding a sporadic furrowed brow in the Senate. At some level, one hopes, a sense of shame and responsibility to the republic will finally kick in. But that, too, is unlikely. Republicans from the top on down have made it clear, expressly or otherwise, that this is all about winning the political fight directly in front of them, the consequences — and the rest of America — be damned.
Brian Beutler/Crooked:
#RELEASETHEMEMO AND THE GOP WAR ON EMPIRICAL REALITY
But there is a third category of concern that should infuriate everyone from journalists to news consumers to citizens who care about whether their elected leaders deploy information in good faith or bad in the course of exercising political power. The George W. Bush presidency eventually ran aground because its efforts to persuade the public to support the Iraq were rooted in deception. In the Trump era, the cynicism runs even deeper, and the #ReleaseTheMemo effort embodies that cynicism in all respects. It is part of a larger effort to relegate what should be shared truth into the realm of partisan politics so that political accountability becomes impossible.
You can’t fire Robert Mueller without cause. You have to go through Rod Rosenstein. You have to justify all of it. The Nunes memo is not a ‘success’ in achieving those goals. But it will be a political failure.
Joe Walsh/WaPo:
Devin Nunes is acting like a partisan hack. That’s just how I remember him.
The Nunes I knew was a purely partisan animal. When it comes to exercising good judgment and discharging his duties in service of the Constitution, he’s just not up to the task.
When you’ve lost Joe Walsh…
Aaron Blake/WaPo:
What if the memo is ‘a dud?’
Philip Bump on Thursday recapped that fiasco, which resulted in Nunes facing an ethics investigation and temporarily recusing himself from Russia-related matters. At the time, I labeled Nunes's actions “one long unforced error”:
Nunes has frequently made strange comments about his panel's investigation. He has repeatedly gone out of his way to play down questions about alleged wrongdoing by the Trump administration — even more so than many Republicans who aren't tasked with running an impartial investigation.
There was the time he called Trump former national security adviser Michael Flynn “the best intelligence officer of his generation” — and said the Flynn controversy over his contacts with the Russian ambassador was “a lot of nothing” — mere hours before Flynn was forced to resign. There was the time he suggested Trump could not have instructed Flynn to talk to Russia about sanctions because Trump was too busy (?). And the time he suggested Trump's tweets about Obama wiretapping him could be forgiven because Trump didn't have 27 lawyers reviewing them.
Then we have to consider the fact that Trump decided to release the memo before he even reviewed it. One adviser told The Post that there was “never any hesitation” about what they would do. That ... doesn't seem to be a great way to handle a memo based on classified information — either policy-wise or politically.
A reminder from NBC News:
Schumer, Pelosi call for Nunes to be removed as House intelligence chair
Schiff also said Thursday that Nunes should step down.
"I mean, he said that he was going to step aside or recuse himself, but never really did," Schiff said at an event at The University of Pennsylvania Thursday, referring to Nunes's earlier decision to recuse himself from the House Russia probe. "Throughout this whole time, he continued to make the most consequential decisions in our investigation."
James Hohmann/WaPo (he’s running):
But make no mistake: Mitt remains a partisan Republican. His niece chairs the Republican National Committee. His father was Richard Nixon’s housing secretary after serving as governor of Michigan. He will never be part of “The Resistance.” His desire to be an effective lawmaker could make him hesitant to be the voice of the Never Trump movement. More often than not, Romney would probably support Trump and vote to advance his priorities – just as Corker, Flake and McCain have in this Congress.
That said, he could still break with the president in significant ways. The Russia investigation comes to mind, as does Trump’s refusal to implement the sanctions on Moscow that Congress passed almost unanimously. Romney spoke out against Roy Moore and said he believed the women accusing him of sexual misconduct after Trump rallied to Moore’s defense in the Alabama special election.
Romney also has the benefit of being far more popular than Trump in Utah.
A point counterpoint on the DACA dilemma for Democrats (aka “deal or no deal?”):
Thomas Edsall/NY Times:
Trump Has Got Democrats Right Where He Wants Them
The conflicts the Trump proposals present for Democrats are most painful to Hispanic and black elected officials.
In a statement, Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Democrat of New Mexico and chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, attacked Trump’s demands:
The White House is using Dreamers to mask their underlying xenophobic, isolationist, and un-American policies, which will harm millions of immigrants living in the United States and millions of others who want to legally immigrate and contribute to our country.
Despite these complaints, there are many political analysts sympathetic to the Democratic plight who contend that Trump has boxed Democrats in.
Dan Drezner/WaPo:
The mediocre conservative argument for a grand bargain on immigration
Liberals have excellent reasons to reject any negotiation with Stephen Miller on both policy and principled grounds.
The basic problem is that the opening gambit by restrictionists is so ridiculously over-the-top that it has poisoned the negotiating process. This is not a surprising outcome. As Megan McArdle noted years ago:
There is a zone of possible agreement (known to those who study this sort of thing as the ZOPA). You can’t negotiate your way out of that zone no matter where you start. Nor does starting from a more aggressive bargaining point always mean that you will do better in the negotiation. It can often mean you do worse, because you poison the process.
Jamelle Bouie/Slate:
The cohesion Trump espouses isn’t national or ideological. It is racial. The fight over immigration isn’t between two camps who value the contributions of immigrants and simply quibble over the mix and composition of entrants to the United States. It is between a camp that values immigrants and seeks to protect the broader American tradition of inclusion, and one that rejects this openness in favor of a darker legacy of exclusion. And in the current moment, it is the restrictionists who are the loudest and most influential voices, and their concerns are driving the terms of the debate.
What we need is a REAL scandal (WaPo). Like the UK gets to have:
British lord who resigned for being late still has a job
“I want to offer my sincere apologies to Baroness Lister for my discourtesy in not being in my place to answer her question on a very important matter at the beginning of questions,” the international development minister said, standing in front of his peers.
“During the five years in which it’s been my privilege to answer questions from this dispatch box on behalf of the government, I’ve always believed that we should rise to the highest possible standards of courtesy and respect in responding on behalf of the government to the legitimate questions of the legislature,” he continued.
Although he was just a couple of minutes late, Bates went on to say: “I am thoroughly ashamed at not being in my place and therefore I shall be offering my resignation to the prime minister . . . with immediate effect.”
TPM:
5 Points On How The Nunes Memo Is Basically One Big Self-Own
The memo was supposed to reveal that the DOJ and FBI omitted key information in obtaining a surveillance warrant against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. But without the reams of underlying evidence supporting the warrant’s approval, all it does is tell a pre-judged, partisan story.
Below are TPM’s key takeaways on how the memo doesn’t add up.