The Nunes Crew Is Neck-Deep in the Ukraine Scandal

[babylonsister]

December 17, 2019
The Nunes Crew Is Neck-Deep in the Ukraine Scandal
Several of the congressman’s current and former staffers have surfaced in connection with the controversy.
Matt Cohen


During the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment hearings last month, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the panel’s ranking member, angrily decried the process. He called the proceedings a “drug deal” concocted by the Democrats for TV ratings and claimed Donald Trump had done nothing wrong in his attempt to get Ukraine to launch investigations that might help his political prospects. All the while, Nunes failed to disclose his own mysterious role in the scandal, which first began to emerge when the Daily Beast reported on the California Republican’s alleged ties to Lev Parnas, the indicted Florida businessman who assisted Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, in his dirt-digging efforts in Ukraine.

When the House Intelligence Committee released its report on its impeachment inquiry at the beginning of December, Nunes’ involvement in the controversy became even clearer. Not only did the report include phone records indicating calls between Nunes and numbers associated with Giuliani and Parnas (Nunes claims the Parnas calls actually came from a number associated with Parnas’ wife and that he spoke with “someone,” he does not recall who), it also indicated deep ties between Nunes’ office and the White House. At least three former Nunes staffers currently work in the White House. A onetime National Security Council staffer in the Trump White House, meanwhile, currently works for Nunes. The names of all of these officials have surfaced in recent months in connection with the Ukraine scandal, and three of them were mentioned in the intelligence committee report.

Kash Patel, a member of Nunes’ intelligence committee staff, left that role in February to join the Trump administration as a senior adviser on the National Security Council. Politico reported in October that the former Nunes aide (whose responsibilities on the NSC do not involve Ukraine policy) supplied Trump with information on Ukraine that influenced the president’s belief that the country colluded with Democrats to interfere in the 2016 election—a debunked conspiracy theory that the White House and other members of the GOP are still running with. Patel contends that he never spoke with Trump about Ukraine-related matters and has filed a lawsuit against Politico over the story, claiming defamation.

But evidence of Patel’s alleged involvement in the Ukraine scandal popped up again during the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment hearings. Fiona Hill, a former top NSC official specializing in Russia and Europe, testified that she was told that Trump “may want to speak to Kash” concerning “some materials related to Ukraine.” Hill got the impression that Trump believed Patel was the NSC’s Ukraine director (his job focused on counterterrorism) and said she unsuccessfully tried to clarify if he “had some special…representational role on Ukraine.”According to Hill, Patel had a close relationship to both Trump and Nunes. According to call logs obtained by the intelligence committee and included in its report, Patel communicated with Giuliani on May 10, less than an hour after Giuliani spoke with Kurt Volker, the former US special envoy to Ukraine.

If Patel sounds familiar, that is because it is not the first time his name has surfaced in connection with a controversial effort to advance the president’s political interests. While working for Nunes, he helped to author a controversial and misleading four-page memo that made a number of disputed assertions concerning how the FBI obtained a FISA warrant to investigate former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page. The memo appeared to be aimed at derailing the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and it was declassified by Trump over objections from the FBI.

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https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/12/the-nunes-crew-is-neck-deep-in-the-ukraine-scandal/

[Faux pas]

1. Kickin'

they are seriously disgusting piles.

[oasis]

2. Whomp there it is!