The cloak and dagger activities by the US House’s Intelligence Committee’s Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) around 3/22/17 has political pundits buzzing because the whole saga makes no sense. A lot of us are trying to figure what was the real reason for Mr. Nunes trip to the White House to look at intelligence data on 3/21/17, only to be followed up the next day by a trip to the White House again, when the representative claims he advised the republican President Donald Trump directly about the intelligence he recently studied, which the president already had at his fingertips.
It has been alleged that all this subterfuge was designed to give the president some cover over his assertion that the President Barack Obama had him wiretapped/ surveilled while he was transitioning into his new role. Rep. Nunes was to pretend that a whistle-blower shared data indicating that the president’s name was detailed in incidental material gathered by the US intelligence community.
Some of us are not buying the current explanations. We are assuming that we are still missing a piece of the puzzle to make sense out of this bizarre saga.
Here is a timeline of what happened on 3/21-3/22/2017...
On 4/1/17, Katie Bo Williams of the The Hill penned the following report, “Devin Nunes, Trump and the Russia probe: A timeline:”
“It’s the biggest mystery gripping Washington, D.C.: Why did Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) do what he did?”
“The beleaguered House Intelligence Committee chairman last week took a trip to the White House to view documents he says expose the widespread incidental collection of surveillance on Trump transition team members.”
“No one else had at that point seen the documents.”
“The unusual sequence of events — and Nunes’s often-opaque explanations — have led committee ranking member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) to suggest that the White House was “laundering” intelligence through the committee.”
Saturday, March 4
“President Trump tweets a claim that former President Barack Obama “wiretapped” Trump Tower during the campaign.”
Wednesday, March 15
“President Trump tells Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that “We are going to be submitting certain things (to the Intelligence Committee).”
“I think you’re going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks,” he said.”
Monday, March 20
“FBI Director James B. Comey publicly announces that the bureau is investigating potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia in an appearance before the House Intelligence Committee — a hearing widely interpreted as bad for the White House.”
Tuesday, March 21
There is something to this exchange that we have not seen as yet. The mention of members of the administration being recorded in exchanges not involving foreign nations is out of the scope of the warrant obtained to seek information. What is strange is the comment from Nunes about those type of recorded comments were incidental to the data received and there fore not to be considered. There has been no words from the administration that the data recorded was not done legally, so one might have pause to wonder what type of discussion was involved and who was involved in the discussion? Could there have been discussion about some other type of criminal activity by the staff of the candidate, or even the candidate himself?
The more that the spokes people for King tRump try to explain away this problem, the more suspicious of their reasoning I become, and the more convinced I become that they are using this to divert attention away from other more important information that has yet to be found. Perhaps as a wise man once told me, don’t pay a whole lot of attention to the shiny object held in front of your eyes, and ignore the plain ordinary bag being spirited away from your view, because that bag holds the real treasure.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Crustyolemothman,
I’m not buying current explanations for one second. I suspect that the intelligence which was shared with the US Congress Representative Adam Schiff of the Intelligence Committee was not everything that was presented to Rep. Devin Nunes.
Hopefully, sometime in the future, the true story in its entirety, will be revealed, especially if Rep. Nunes is called as a witness.
I enjoyed watching John Oliver’s YouTube presentation of Rep. Nunes escapades.
Ciao, Gronda
LikeLike
While I normally don’t use U-Tube for reference, here is a short video clip you might find amusing that covers the very topic of this article. While I don’t consider the language in it necessary, it still does not detract from the video. If King tRump has done nothing else he has created a number of jobs in the field of comedy…
LikeLiked by 1 person
LOL, John Oliver is hilarious.
LikeLike
Dear 1EarthUnited,
He is interesting. This whole scenario makes absolutely no sense. My hypothesis is that this theatrical performance delivery was designed to deflect but that is only a small part of the story. My guess is as good as many other theories..
Ciao, Gronda
LikeLike
It seems like there’s an info war going on between the far left and right. Each side has their interpretation of DT’s surveillance and what’s legal, procedural, permissible etc.
As usual the truth is somewhere in the middle, we just have to get past all the speculation and rumours.
Latest breaking news comes from Yahoo, via Fox which is a conservative station. Interesting how they spin it, quoting sources that are confidential, supposedly from insider whistleblowers, but I’m not buying it!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/sources-trump-associates-surveilled-122117231.html
LikeLike
Dear 1EarthUnited,
For me it is real simple. If Susan Rice unmasked DT or surrogates as part of surveillance of Russian or foreign officials, this would have been legal and appropriate because, it had already been revealed that Russia attempted to interfere 2016 presidential elections.
If the unmasking was based on surveillance outside of Russian probe, then this needs to be uncovered and addressed. While this action may be legal it is not right. The use of intelligence data should not be done for political purposes but for US national security.
Ciao, Gronda
LikeLike
Totally agree, very good assessment. Any administration that utilizes a FISA court order should only investigate activity relevant to national security. The 2016 election has been especially contentious, if there’s impropriety on behalf of the Obama administration, then they should also be held accountable, no one should be above the law. So far, we only have preliminary report from FBI stating that there is no collusion between Trump and Russia influencing the election, and Obama did not personally wiretap Trump’s office. Like you said, time will reveal all.
LikeLike