Four Biggest Takeaways From Bombshell Leaked Audio Of Rep. Devin Nunes

[DonViejo]

By Kate Riga | August 9, 2018 8:03 am

-snip-

Here are the four biggest revelations from Nunes’ speech:

1) Nunes is worried that without the blind and unconditional protection of a Republican majority, the President will be in serious legal jeopardy from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.

“This puts us in such a tough spot. If Sessions won’t unrecuse and Mueller won’t clear the President, we’re the only ones, which is really the danger…We have to keep all these seats, we have to keep the majority. We do not keep the majority, all of this goes away.”

2) Though their attempts seem to have petered out for now, there is still will from at least some faction of the Republican caucus to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

“The Senate would have to drop everything they’re doing and start with impeachment on Rosenstein, and then take the risk of not getting Kavanaugh confirmed. So it’s not a matter that any of us like Rosenstein, it’s a matter of timing.”

3) Nunes stated strongly that a politician disseminating stolen information given to him or her by a foreign entity is a crime (which sounds an awful lot like what the President, his family members and his associates may have done). In his hypothetical, Nunes is using Portugal as the foreign entity and Rodgers as the receiver.

“So Cathy was getting secret information from the Portuguese—that may or may not be unusual. But ultimately, let’s say that the Portuguese came and brought her some stolen e-mailed and she decided to release those. Okay now we have a problem, right? Because somebody stole the emails, gave them to Cathy, Cathy released them. Well if that’s the case, that’s criminal.”

4) On a less serious note: Even Nunes, one of Trump’s most stalwart defenders, sometimes cringes at the President’s tweets:

“…you know you have a mixed bag on the tweets right? Sometimes we love the President’s tweets and sometimes we cringe on the President’s tweets, but they’re trying to make a political—this is all political as to why that story ran the “New York Times” on the tweets.”

-snip-

more
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/four-biggest-takeaways-from-bombshell-leaked-audio-of-devin-nunes

[rzemanfl]

1. K&R for visibility. n/t

[D23MIURG23]

2. K&R

[MrScorpio]

3. Nunes is giving us all a masterclass on what's it's like to be an elected official w/o any integrity

[lastlib]

29. The Devin Nunes Guide to Becoming An Elected Whore

(Except most whores have enough self-respect that there are some things they wil not do for money. Nunes does not.)

[Cha]

31. Dripping with venom

[magicarpet]

34. From Nunes' own mouth...

... how to be an active stooge and participant in obstruction of justice
in order to protect trDump from his and his family's illegal conduct - join in a conspiracy with a foreign entity to steal goods (DNC emails) and use those stolen goods to illegally and criminally rig a United States Presidential Election - to the favor of the highly incompetent conman and buffoon -candidate Trump.

This little private speech to Rethug donors by Nunes spells it out - he is an active player and participant in the scheme to obstruct justice and monkey wrench the Rosenstein/Mueller probe with the specific intent to protect a guilty president from the crimes he committed to illegally gain entry to the Oval Office - and the position of the Presidency of The United States of America.

Nunes could not have made that reality any clearer. Obstruction of Justice is their means and method to maintain their innocents and protect them from their criminal conduct and behavior.

That has been their scheme all along to not have to answer to these crimes.

[Mc Mike]

4. Even if the 'Portugese' secret info wasn't stolen, it was still an in kind donation

from a foreign national or foreign gov.

[flibbitygiblets]

11. This. It's tantamount to accepting cash

which, if memory serves, trump campaign solicited cash from foreign countries [I want to say England?), early in his campaign. Had to be told, "uh, you can't do that", and trump was all, "oh. Well I'm new at this, didn't know that, my bad"

[Mc Mike]

27. I didn't remember that one, but do remember Pimpy O'Keefe's 'citizen journalist' expose attempt

where he tried to lure some low level volunteer for the Clinton campaign, selling shirts at an event to benefit the campaign, to sell a shirt to a 'known' 'canadian'.

Boy, the repugs would have gotten outraged about that campaign donation law violation, if they could have gotten it to occur, and taped it.

[calimary]

15. I know! He's going to find some Democrat named Cathy and blame the whole thing

on her. And then throw the book at her, while loudly proclaiming how much he loves and respects and adores the law!

[dchill]

17. Perhaps that fact escapes poor Devin.

[Kensan]

24. I'll give Nunes this...

He's definitely improved his ability to play the game of obsfucation. He is clearly still towing the Trump line of defense, and I have to say I'm slightly impressed that he was able to say this in an "off-the-cuff" moment. I usually consider Nunes to be a serious contender for one of the dumber members of our government, but this shows some real progress in how the GOP spins the message.

So let's parse his words a little bit. He talks about a hypothetical in which Cathy was getting secret STOLEN information from a foreign government, and she herself decided to release them. Well that sure sounds like criminal activity. In Nunes' scenario, Cathy knew the goods were stolen, took possession of those stolen materials, and personally utilized/distributed them with intent to benefit from their exposure. Wow, that's pretty damning alright.

But this is a false narrative that is specifically designed to be distinguishable from the Trump fact pattern. Trump never received the actual goods, and the release of the stolen DNC emails was done through proxies like Wikileaks and other websites. The GOP is trying to use this distinction as a distraction from the real criminal activity....the conspiracy portion.

Each of the Trump campaign members involved in that famous Trump Tower meeting had a role to play. Trump Jr. was to play the role of the patsy if this all went sour. He was just a good kid looking to help his dad get elected. He didn't know all those complicated campaign finance rules. As far as he knew, he was just dealing with normal opposition research. Nothing out of the ordinary there, right? That's been the fallback position from day one...all candidates do this. Nothing to see here.

Notice that team Trump has always maintained they never received anything of value that day. The Russians came, and it was a big nothingburger. That also plays into the Nunes scenario. Trump wasn't dealing in stolen materials, since he walked away from the meeting with nothing. But of course, that's not true, either. The Russians were never going to actually hand over anything to team Trump. They showed what they had, and I'm sure talked about their ability to get more. That's where Jared comes in.

What do you do with these emails? Yeah, they didn't present a pretty picture about the Democrats, but their usefulness was pretty limited. The media would run with it for a few days, and then drop it for the next big shiny thing. How do you keep this story front and center. Well, you weaponize it. Enter Jared and his connections to Cambridge Analytica. Using stolen emails and stolen profile data, they successfully ran a psyops campaign on our own population.

Manafort was there to meet with the Russian money launderers. This type of operation doesn't come cheap, so there has to be some coordination to pay the players without being detected. Plus he was the one who was going to parlay the quid-pro-quo...Trump drops the sanctions for Russian assistance and a little something something (like a % of oil deals) on the side.

What team Trump and the GOP try to gloss over is that if you are part of the conspiracy, you don't have to be involved in the actual actions. You just had to agree to the conspiracy to commit the acts. Once the plan is put in motion, even if it fails, you are treated as a participant. But officer, I didn't rob the bank...I was just waiting in the car outside.

The walls are closing in, and Nunes can feel it. His comments at the fundraiser tell it all. The GOP has to stay in control, or the whole ballgame is over.

[Mc Mike]

28. I read your reply. Interesting ideas.

Nunes is good at obfuscation, in a low animal cunning way. Dumb as a post, otherwise.

I think the meeting was just a mandatory 'here are the key players, to make an agreement'. No need for info to be passed. Just a confirmation of an agreement by people who were the top people for t Rump, with the russians. Top tRumpers saying that they had the authority to guarantee a deal. Promises made on both sides, coordination came later via hundreds of contacts between dozens of tRumpers and dozens of russians. With the tangelo taint tumor constantly sending messages openly with his cannonmouth from campaign stages, right to the medias' cameras.

[uponit7771]

32. I don't know why they're not shitting bricks about the house then? At minimum ...

... dems can open investigations that hems up the lot of the KGOP.

[Kensan]

36. Oh, I'm sure they are in private...

In public, they have to maintain the appearance of being "strong" leaders. Nunes let his guard down a bit at that fundraiser, and everyone could see the fear in his heart. No Republican majority would be a disaster for Trump and all his fellow sychophants, including those in Congress. The public may finally see exactly the measures taken by the GOP to run interference for Trump throughout this investigation. I think Nunes, especially, realizes just how much he has pissed off his ranking colleagues with his stunts.

I know I'm certainly appreciating the harsher tone coming from Schiff and Swalwell lately. I can't wait until they have subpoena power!!

The GOP knows the blue wave is coming, and it's likely so large it will smash through even their gerrymandered districts. They will be pulling out all the stops: voter registration purges, strict adherence to voter ID laws, allocating far too few voting machines to urban districts that favor Democrats, and likely hoping/begging for some "outside assistance" again from Uncle Vlad.

I wouldn't be surprised if the GOP tried to capitalize on the effects of Trump's tariff wars that will be trickling down and impacting local economies. The governors will spout that "for budgetary reasons" the polling places will have to be consolidated. Naturally, this will impact urban areas again. This will be done at the last minute, so mass confusion and chaos will ensue. We've seen before where high school gyms were trying to administer the vote for multiple precincts. Nobody knew which line was correct or if they were even at the right location, and voters often had to be redirected. The intended result..people became frustrated and left without voting.

This election is too important to let these dirty tricks discourage us. I believe the vast majority of people are fed up with all the BS right now, and their collective will won't be broken. The political tectonic plates are experiencing a significant shift, and the resulting tsunami wave is on its way to crash ashore in November.

[uponit7771]

37. I do agree I think some s*** is out about to hit the fan there's no way they're going to let the Dem

The house and open more investigation

[Bromwell]

5. Nunes is a TURD

I know, stating the obvious....

He's on the Mount Rushmore (no offense to Mt. Rushmore) of the current batch of deplorable GOP elected officials for me.

tRump
The Turtle
Nunes
Paul "Eddie Munster" Ryan

4 spots of course is not NEARLY enough...

[Dopers_Greed]

7. Add every member of the Putin Caucus to that

We'll need a bigger mountain

[Perseus]

10. I may be wrong, but he also showed

that he is not very intelligent, his speech patterns are not good enough to impress anyone to vote for him, he sounded almost childish...maybe that is why he adores trump so much, the child in him.

[flibbitygiblets]

12. I think "functioning moron" is the term you're searching for

He's only slightly better at English than dump.

And this is the party that preaches how immigrants must "learn our language".

[Bromwell]

22. Yeah...a lot of the deplorables seem to gravitate to candidates that can barely speak coherent

sentences. The Keebler Elf sounds like he struggles speaking English too. Yep...a bunch of geniuses they got there boy! Stupid is as stupid does as stupid votes.

More irony from the "speak English or leave" set....barely can speak the language themselves.

[Scurrilous]

6. K&R

[aggiesal]

8. The stupidity of Nunes astounds me ...

well, maybe not.

But this statement shows Nunes lack of civics,

"The Senate would have to drop everything they’re doing and start with impeachment on Rosenstein, and ...

The Senate doesn't impeach, only the House can impeach.
The Senate holds the trial, and convicts or not.

Impeachment is like a Grand Jury indictment.
The Grand Jury finds enough evidence that a crime has been committed and indicts.
The Court then hears the trial based on the indictments and rules.

The House should find enough evidence that a crime was committed by IQ45 and impeach.
The Senate, hears the trial based on the impeachment and rules.

Pretty simple.

In this case, there are no crimes committed by Rosenstein, therefore, no impeachment by the House.
They just need Rosenstein out of the way to fire Mueller.

[FakeNoose]

14. This is how dumb people "dumb down" to everybody else

Don't forget that Nunes was speaking to his donors and benefactors, the people with deep pockets who have financed his campaigns. He's trying to sound like he knows what's happening, and he 's got his finger on the pulse.

Just reading this speech he gave, it's incredible to think Nunes has a law degree. (?) On second thought maybe he doesn't have a law degree, but he's trying to sound like he does. I'm sure his audience can see right through him.

[calimary]

18. Unless his audience doesn't WANT TO see through him.

The willfully ignorant contingent is alive and well - and thoroughly dominant on that side of the aisle. Both inside the Capitol building and across the nation.

[bringthePaine]

9. small caveat/addendum as to point 1

The fraud who would be king is indeed dancing with serious legal jeopardy, but not
because of the Mueller investigation. The investigation is a consequence, not a cause.
The root cause is his continuing history of behaviors and actions defined as criminal
by the laws of the United States of America. Justice must be served.

[FakeNoose]

19. The closed minds of the GOP will never get this - but you are so right!

The RWNJs who engineered Bill Clinton's impeachment in 1998 are completely stuck in bizarro world. To them, impeachment is just one more political strategy in their bag-o-tricks.

But we know differently: If/when Trump is impeached it will only be because he brought this on himself. Robert Mueller is not his enemy, he's doing his job. If Trump had conducted his campaign according our laws, a special investigator wouldn't have been called for. No man is above the law.

Of course, now the question is how many others drank the koolaid? Certainly Nunes is one of them, but so many in the GOP are complicit.

[BSdetect]

13. He was talking obstruction and treason yet wanted to keep it going.

[gratuitous]

16. Nunes simultaneously expresses two contradictory "thoughts"

"They" (unspecified, but maybe the New York Times?) try to make Trump's tweets "a political" but that's apparently reprehensible, which makes Devin all grrrr mad! It's only the Republicans who can make "a political" out of Trump's tweets; anyone else doing is totes unfair!

[ROB-ROX]

20. TRULY STUPID

I live in the area near Nune's district. My district is filled with stupid RE-THUGS who are blind to what is HAPPENING. I think it may just be a case of INBREEDING which has damaged so many peoples ability to think normally. We democratic people are moving into the Red districts with the hopes of decreasing the RED menace..........We are not yet a majority, but time will tell.

[SunSeeker]

21. The Central Valley is redder than Alabama. But it is slowly changing.

Although Trump carried the 22nd by 10 points in 2016, Kamala carried it by 5 points in that same election. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California%27s_22nd_congressional_district#2016

Hang in there.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

23. #5

Nunes is a fucking dumbshit.

[bluestarone]

25. NUNES is about ONE THING HERE!

and THAT is REPUGS (HIMSELF INCLUDED)only purpose is COVERUP, DESTROY EVIDENCE, OBSTRUCT JUSTICE! Can't wait until we have the senate and house!! Then i hope it's subpoena subpoena subpoena!!!! ALL OF THEM ASSHOLES!!!!!

[PearliePoo2]

26. This story is FRONT page above the fold in Spokane's 'The Spokesman Review'.

This is going to leave a mark on McMorris Rodgers!

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/aug/09/recording-of-private-cathy-mcmorris-rodgers-fundra/


Recording of Devin Nunes in private Cathy McMorris Rodgers fundraiser makes national headlines tied to Russia probe

snip:
"A secret recording of a conversation during a Spokane fundraiser for Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers is making national headlines for comments Rep. Devin Nunes made about the federal attorney overseeing the probe into Russian ties in the 2016 election.

The event was closed to the press, and more than a hundred protesters gathered outside to criticize McMorris Rodgers for bringing Nunes, who’s stated publicly he’d like to impeach Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general in charge of the Russian probe. Nunes appeared to say at the meeting that it was important the GOP maintain its control in Congress after the November elections so that they can continue to check that investigation."

more at the link.

[YOHABLO]

30. I read more into the comment he made: "...all of this goes away" Their power?

Their thuggery?

[Scarsdale]

33. The easy money,

the trips, private planes, all the perks. It is telling that someone with the lack of ability shown by Nunes is a gop member of the Intelligence Committee!! Are there ANY intelligent members of the gop? Is their lack of ethics and intelligence what draws them to the gop?

[magicarpet]

35. Ineptitude and mediocrity is fine...

The Rethug reason for getting involved in governance is for one reason and one reason alone.

To gain the opportunity to rape, pilfer, and plunder from the national treasury and the proceeds go directly into their wallets and secret bank accounts.

Making out like bandits on your dime - is the name and purpose of their game.

Why clutter up the above equation with something as mundane as effective and meaningful governance for the people ?