Nunes May Be Making Himself Vulnerable - Politically and for Obstruction of Justice

At times it is difficult to determine who is the more dishonest - Devin Nunes or his "dear leader" Donald Trump, for who Nunes will prostitute himself to near unimaginable lengths.  Nunes has now had fellow members of the House Intelligence Committee compare him to Joseph McCarthy while others have indicated that Nunes has not read any of the underlying documents underlying his fictional memo assailing the FBI.  Others are also suggesting that Nunes may be setting himself up for obstruction of justice charges.  This from The Raw Story:

Former White House ethics counsel Norm Eisen warned on Wednesday that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) may have opened himself up to obstruction of justice charges if he colluded with the White House to create a memo smearing the FBI’s Russia investigation. . . . . Nunes has refused to deny that he worked with White House staffers while writing an allegedly misleading memo suggesting that the Justice Department acted improperly when it extended surveillance of former Trump campaign staffer Carter Page, who was thought to be a foreign agent.

“Nunes’s speech and debate clause Congressional immunity may not protect him from liability for conduct outside Congress.”  He added: “Depending on the facts, Nunes may have put himself in middle of a conspiracy to obstruct justice. He better beware: There r no secrets in this White House.”

As icing on the cake, a piece in New York Magazine reports that Nunes' shenanigans and politico fellatio of Donald Trump is not sitting well with some in his home district where Nunes stands for re-election in November.  Here are story excerpts:

More each day, House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes, a Republican from California, is making himself the tip of the spear of White House efforts to discredit the Mueller investigation.

Moreover, the means deployed by Nunes to achieve this political goal . . . he and his staff prepared and are trying to get into the public domain, involve discrediting the independence of the FBI.

This is a pretty big reach for a relatively obscure GOP member of Congress, whose investigatory skills were sardonically compared to those of the bumbling Inspector Clouseau of the Pink Panther films by Senator Lindsey Graham.

Having committed his committee early on to maximum defense of Trump and his associates via ever-more-dubious allegations of misconduct by, well, everyone else, Nunes has now gone far down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, and is making allegations that if accepted would require a massive purge of federal law-enforcement personnel to “cleanse” them of anti-Trump bias. And now he may have been caught by the ranking minority member of his committee, fellow-Californian Adam Schiff, in altering his classified memo before sharing it with the White House.

At first glance you’d figure Nunes to be pretty safe. His Central Valley district (rated as eight points more Republican than the national average by the Cook Political Report) gave Donald Trump a nine-point winning margin in 2016. Nunes himself won 68 percent. Republicans have a 43/33 registration advantage in the 22nd District, centered in the Republican-trending parts of Fresno and Tulare Counties.

But Nunes’s increasingly bizarre behavior is giving unlikely oxygen to his most prominent Democratic challenger, local prosecutor Andrew Janz, who created something of a buzz in December by erecting billboards showing the incumbent on a child leash (along with the president) held by Vladimir Putin.

More tellingly, Janz commissioned a poll from Public Policy Polling earlier this month that showed a generic Democrat within five points of Nunes (who led 50/45). The survey also suggested independents were breaking pretty heavily against the incumbent, which is exactly what a Democrat would need in this district.

This district is still a tough sell for any Democrat. But if Democrats regain the kind of big national lead that generic congressional ballot tests were showing for much of 2017, then an upset is not out of the question . . . .