Nunes Letter Proves House Intelligence Chair Schiff Is Discredited, and in Need of ‘Rehabilitation’

Dec. 16, 2019 (EIRNS)—House Intelligence ranking member Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), whose exposure of that the FBI and Justice Department knowingly used the lying Steele dossier to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against a member of Trump’s campaign, turned Russiagate into a dead letter, stands completely vindicated by the report of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. The abominable FBI conduct regarding the so-called “Steele dossier” smearing Trump, was what Nunes was unearthing when he was attacked by committee Democrats and the media as virtually a Russian agent.

Now Representative Nunes has released a devastating letter to the Democratic Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, who on Sunday television was completely on the defensive about the FBI misconduct and outright crimes found by Horowitz’s investigators. Nunes is basically cataloguing Schiff’s discredited position as Committee chair, and demanding action from him to “rehabilitate.”

The long letter begins: “Dear Chairman Schiff: As you are aware, on December 9, 2019, U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz published the results of his investigation of the FISA warrant and renewals obtained by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to spy on Trump campaign associate Carter Page. The IG’s findings of pervasive, major abuses by the FBI dramatically contradict the assertions of your memo released on February 24, 2018, in which you claimed, ‘FBI and DOJ officials did not “abuse” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump Campaign.’

“After publishing false conclusions of such enormity on a topic directly within this committee’s oversight responsibilities, it is clear you are in need of rehabilitation.

“Outlining every false claim from your memo would require an extremely long letter, so I will limit my summary to a few highlights. In your memo you made the following assertions:

“• FBI and DOJ officials did not omit material information from the FISA warrant.

“• The DOJ ‘made only narrow use of information from [Christopher] Steele’s sources about Page’s specific activities in 2016.’

“• In subsequent FISA renewals, DOJ provided additional information that corroborated Steele’s reporting.

“• The Page FISA warrant allowed the FBI to collect ‘valuable intelligence.’

“• ‘Far from “omitting” material facts about Steele, as the Majority claims, DOJ repeatedly informed the Court about Steele’s background, credibility, and potential bias.’

“• The FBI conducted a ‘rigorous process’ to vet Steele’s allegations, and the Page FISA application explained the FBI’s reasonable basis for finding Steele credible.

“• Steele’s prior reporting was used in criminal proceedings....

“The IG report has exposed all these declarations as false.”

Nunes makes the unanswerable argument that the Intelligence Committee’s purpose is oversight of the activities of the intelligence agencies; that in contradiction, Schiff has been covering up their misdeeds; he is therefore discredited as chair of that committee. Nunes concludes:

“As part of your rehabilitation, it’s crucial that you admit you have a problem—you are hijacking the Intelligence Committee for political purposes while excusing and covering up intelligence agency abuses. The next step will be to convene a hearing with IG Horowitz, as the Senate Judiciary Committee has done and the Senate Homeland Security Committee will do next week.”