The Nunes memo reveals that Devin Nunes is dumber than we thought
After a week of breathless coverage of the supposedly explosive Nunes memo, the House Intelligence Committee finally released it to the public on Friday.
The response of experts in the field: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .
The Nunes memo, named after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes whose aides wrote the thing, was supposed to demonstrate how certain FBI agents and Justice Department officials were and remain biased against Trump. Nunes alleged that the unverified Christopher Steele dossier, funded partly by the Hillary Clinton campaign, was used unjustly to warrant the surveillance of Carter Page, Trump's former foreign policy advisor.
None other than Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein signed off on that surveillance -- the man who, coincidentally, is responsible for supervising the Mueller investigation and who Trump is aching to fire.
But for all of the incessant speculation and frothing at the mouth, the memo appears to be something of a dud. It reads more like a thinly sourced Op Ed you'd find in The Federalist than anything of substance. And despite Nunes' framing of the surveillance as unwarranted and based on poorly conducted opposition campaign research -- his own memo contradicts him:
"The Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Pete Strzok," Nunes writes.
What a genius.
Twitter had a field day with it.
"So you think you can obstruct justice," President Trump? Well, probably, you can:
Happy Friday!
Topics Politics
Heather was the Web Trends reporter at Mashable NYC. Prior to joining Mashable, Heather wrote regularly for UPROXX and GOOD Magazine, was published in The Daily Dot and VICE, and had her work featured in Entertainment Weekly, Jezebel, Mic, and Gawker. She loves small terrible dogs and responsible driving. Follow her on Twitter @wear_a_helmet.
