This week House Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes got his hands on some kind of classified intelligence through unofficial channels, and it spooked him to the point that he broke every protocol – and may have broken his career in the process. Nunes insists someone on the Donald Trump transition team was legally picked up on a wiretap that was targeted at someone else. And it appears the person incidentally surveilled was Vice President Mike Pence.
Based on Nunes’ description, someone on the Trump transition team was picked up while speaking on the phone with someone who was the subject of a FISA warrant. Widespread media reports have long pegged four people in the Trump campaign’s orbit as being under FBI investigation: Michael Flynn, Carter Page, Roger Stone, and Paul Manafort. These are the four who could realistically have been the subject of a judge-issued FISA surveillance warrant.
Of the four men, the only one who is known to have had phone conversations with anyone on the Trump transition team during the transition was Manafort. And the one person Manafort kept calling? Mike Pence (source: Daily Kos. The two have long been aligned; Manafort went to great lengths to ensure Pence was Trump’s running mate. So it appears that Devin Nunes learned this week that Pence had been caught saying something disconcerting on Manafort’s wiretap. And that may explain why Nunes did what he did from there.
It’s not a secret that most Republicans in Congress, including Speaker Paul Ryan, view themselves as being more closely aligned with establishment Republican Mike Pence than with erratic outsider Donald Trump. So if Nunes came across evidence of Pence on a wiretap, it might explain why his first move was to panic and run to Ryan for advice. It would also explain why Nunes was of the belief that Trump himself might not have been aware of it, and felt compelled to take it to him.
This still doesn’t answer the questions of who leaked the classified information to Nunes, or why, or whether Nunes knew at the time who the real source was, or if he’s since figured it out. It appears someone was manipulating him as a useful idiot. But now the more immediate question may be what Mike Pence kept discussing with Russian puppet Paul Manafort during the transition, and if it implicated Pence in Trump’s Russia scandal. We don’t know that answer yet, but the FBI does.
https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/846354430106722304
https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/846348406247317504
https://twitter.com/nytpolitics/status/846325763758575616
https://twitter.com/onecaliberal/status/846162878633684992
https://twitter.com/PalmerReport/status/845788696393777152
https://twitter.com/Isikoff/status/846034157486657537
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/846027355810418689
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/845702738256244740
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/845694133842968581
https://twitter.com/ericgarland/status/845352787017977857
https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/845656546478620672
https://twitter.com/TAPSTRIMEDIA/status/845664643414679556
https://twitter.com/HubieDo/status/845657139108626433
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/845472709438066689
Friday, March 24, 2017
WARN-Chauncey DeVega
A Conversation with Anti-Racism Educator and Activist Jane Elliott About the Blue-Eyed/Brown-Eyed Teaching Exercise, Racism, and the Rise of Donald Trump
Audio: http://www.chaunceydevega.com/2017/03/a-conversation-with-anti-racism.html
LMBO
Never before seen footage of trump in his early con man days
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mubCkCAEiDQ
typical, folks thinking they can get something, by CONNING.
Malcolm Nance says Mike Flynn will cave in and SPILL FIRST.
Some think he’s already cut a deal.
https://twitter.com/juliettekayyem/status/845673079611187204
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfKu68qjKkI
See how the Gop go at it, Dems? Those parroting TALKING POINTS!
https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/845596110492254208
No shit, Sherlock! Ya think?
https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/845646874795261952
White men BEHAVING BADLY- SHOCKER!!!
https://twitter.com/RepAdamSchiff/status/845615021040136192
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/845454497698721793
Oops!😄😄😄😄
House intel chair Devin Nunes says no one at White House under surveillance “but one”
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/845513560843268097
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/845515598490746881