Republicans, led by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (center), claim there’s anti-Trump bias at the highest levels of the federal bureaucracy that needs to be investigated. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo How the Nunes memo became the latest political football in the Russia investigation

Do you remember the swirl of controversy around “unmasking”? Or Uranium One? Or the calls for a special counsel to investigate the special counsel?

You can be forgiven if these have all blended together. Now we’re in the midst of a new drama over a classified memo drafted by Republican House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes that purports to show bias at the FBI against President Donald Trump.


In the year since the FBI, CIA and NSA publicly concluded in a joint report that “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election” and that “Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump,” a large and vocal group of Republicans have been imploring Americans to look at something — anything! — else.

From the fever swamps of InfoWars and Breitbart to the wild theories played out every weeknight by Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity on Fox News, to the halls of Congress and even the Oval Office, there has been a robust effort to distract from, discredit and derail investigations into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. That is especially true of the criminal investigation overseen by special counsel Robert Mueller, whose inquiry has expanded to include questions about whether Trump or people close to him tried to obstruct justice.

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The ignore-Russia-look-at-THIS effort reached a fever pitch on Thursday, when the White House indicated it would not block House Republican efforts to release the classified memo over the objections of the FBI, headed by Christopher Wray — a man appointed by Trump after the president summarily fired James Comey from the director’s post for his pursuit of, you guessed it, the Russia investigation.

Republicans, led by Nunes, claim there’s an anti-Trump bias at the highest levels of the federal bureaucracy that needs to be investigated. “Having stonewalled Congress’ demands for information for nearly a year, it’s no surprise to see the FBI and DOJ issue spurious objections to allowing the American people to see information related to surveillance abuses at these agencies,” Nunes said in a statement Wednesday after the FBI said it had “grave concerns” about the memo release.

But Nunes, first elected to the House in 2002, has never seemed overly preoccupied with Russian meddling, though his own committee has been tasked with investigating the unprecedented attack on American democracy.

In March, after Trump fired his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, for lying about the nature of his contacts with Russian officials — which were revealed by the intelligence community — Nunes raced to the White House to argue that illegal “unmasking” had taken place, implying that perhaps Flynn had been unmasked in intelligence reports for political reasons, though he had no evidence for such a claim. Here was the real story! The unmasking!

Nunes later apologized, sort of, to his colleagues for the episode and recused himself from leading the House Intelligence Committee investigation — except, not really.



After that, Trump fired Comey, then railed at Attorney General Jeff Sessions — who recused himself early on from Russia matters — for not being able to prevent Mueller’s appointment. In June, it would later come out, Trump even ordered Mueller’s firing, though he backed down when warned by staff.

Instead of pushing back on the president, Republicans launched attacks on Mueller’s credibility. Sessions ordered his prosecutors to revisit claims that Hillary Clinton was involved in a quid pro quo involving the sale of a uranium mining company to Russian interests. Republican lawmakers also flagged anti-Trump text messages between two FBI officials who had worked on the Mueller probe — one even called him a “f—ing idiot,” which was interpreted as a sign of a mass conspiracy at the bureau to take down the president.

But Mueller persisted. He’s secured Flynn’s cooperation as part of a guilty plea deal, as well as that of a former campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos. As 2017 closed, it became clear that Mueller’s investigation was increasingly focused on the president’s own actions since taking office, and whether he or people close to him tried to obstruct justice.

Trump contemplates releasing memo, FBI expresses 'grave concerns' over accuracy Trump contemplates releasing memo, FBI expresses 'grave concerns' over accuracy

The president has claimed there’s nothing to the investigation, and also tried to indicate he’s an open book. Almost every senior White House official has been interviewed in the probe, and the president’s lawyers have said he’s open to sitting down with investigators, part of an effort to appear transparent.

Enter the memo.

On Jan. 4, Nunes informed the deputy attorney general that his committee would explore DOJ’s handling of the Russia investigation, citing in particular the extent to which the agency relied on the infamous “pee tape” dossier — originally compiled as opposition research for Clinton — to justify surveillance of Trump associates.

As Trump dealt with the fallout from the publication of Michael Wolff’s White House tell-all “Fire and Fury,” prompting the president to describe himself as “a very stable genius,” Nunes got busy on his memo. For the committee, it was another way to ding the supposedly anti-Trump “deep state.”

For Trump, it’s become something more—not just a way to undermine the people overseeing an investigation that threatens his presidency, but also a way reinforce suggestions that he has nothing to hide. “We certainly support full transparency,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said last week.

Democrats on the committee voted against releasing Nunes’ classified document, citing concern about the validity of its claims, prompting the president to assure a fellow Republican on his way off the floor after Tuesday’s State of the Union address that he would “100 percent” approve its release.

But like the unmasking episode and everything that’s followed, the memo’s existence—and its release, if or when that happens—has done nothing to slow Mueller’s probe.

“As Mueller and his team move closer to the president and his inner circle, a sense of panic is palpable on the Hill,” the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post. “In response, [Republicans] have drawn on the stratagem of many criminal defense lawyers — when the evidence against a defendant is strong, put the government on trial.”

Schiff, as it happens, later flagged discrepancies between the version of the memo the House voted to release and the one forwarded to the White House, prompting former Republican Hill staffer and Never Trump standard-bearer Evan McMullin to tweet Thursday: “The Republicans on the House Intel Committee are The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. They craft a misleading memo to help the president obstruct justice and then they botch their own scam by secretly altering the version THEY voted to release. What a disgrace.”

