There’s a larger picture to be understood here, about where this investigation will go and the methods parties use to advance their political aims. But let’s start with Nunes:

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) temporarily recused himself Thursday from all matters related to the committee’s ongoing probe into Russia’s interference in the presidential election, as House investigators look into ethics allegations against him. Nunes said in a statement that he decided to recuse himself after “several leftwing activist groups” filed complaints with the Office of Congressional Ethics about his leadership. Nunes called the charges “entirely false and politically motivated,” but said his recusal would be in effect while the House Ethics Committee looks into the matter. The House Ethics Committee released a statement Thursday saying it had “determined to investigate” allegations that “Nunes may have made unauthorized disclosures of classified information, in violation of House Rules, law, regulations, or other standards of conduct.”

Without going over all of Nunes’ shenanigans that led to this point, it’s safe to say that while he was trying to protect President Trump from the Russia scandal, he actually made things much worse. Everything he did opened up more questions and created more pressure for a truly independent investigation. And it’s all because Trump tweeted “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!” and “I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!”

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Everyone knew Trump’s charges were ludicrous from the beginning, but in order to defend him, Republicans had to pretend there was something to them. And in doing so, they ended up raising more questions and opening up new lines of inquiry that will end up just deepening the scandal.

For instance, conservative media went into paroxysms of ecstasy when they learned that former national security adviser Susan Rice asked to see the identity of Americans who turned up in surveillance of foreign intelligence targets (presumably Russian) and some of those Americans turned out to be Trump associates. Despite the fact that high-ranking officials request that information (“unmasking”) routinely, and it would have been highly relevant to the fact that Russia was at that moment trying to distort our election process — a matter of great concern to the official charged with safeguarding America’s national security — they’re acting as though this proves that the Obama administration was “spying” on Trump. The president himself has even made the preposterous claim that Rice might have committed some kind of crime.

So now places like Fox News and Breitbart are consumed with that corner of the Russia scandal. But how does that actually help the Trump administration? Doesn’t it just open more questions? For instance, what was in those NSA reports that Rice saw that gave her enough concern to ask who the Americans talking to the foreign intelligence targets were? You can bet that, if he knew what was good for him, the president would rather we not ask.

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All this shows yet again that while Republicans were very good at being an opposition party they still don’t understand that they’re not the opposition anymore. They are bringing an opposition mindset to the Russia affair. When you’re in the opposition, you demand documents and records partly to see if there’s anything actually nefarious, but, by screaming bloody murder at everything the other side does, you also create a miasma of chaos around Washington, which makes it harder to get anything real done.

That can be very effective if you’re in the opposition and your goal is to hamstring the administration. But the people creating that chaos now are this administration’s allies, and everything they’re doing is raising new questions and elevating the Russia scandal, not tamping it down.

So what happens now? Though Devin Nunes remains chair of the House Intelligence Committee, the Russia investigation will be taken over by Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX), who in January told the Dallas Morning News that Russia’s attack on our election was no more of a problem than the fact that Mexican celebrities performed at an event in Las Vegas for Hillary Clinton. “If we’re worried about foreign influence, let’s have the whole story,” he said. So you know he’ll be conducting an aggressive and thorough investigation in Nunes’ stead.

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Now it’s possible that Conaway will surprise everyone and do such a scrupulous job that at the end of his investigation we’ll have a full and complete understanding of everything that happened with Trump and the Russians in 2016. But it seems more likely that, like Nunes, he’ll be acting mostly as the administration’s representative, trying to shield them from embarrassment and promoting their spin on whatever new information we learn along the way.

Unless there’s an independent commission established to investigate this matter (which would require the assent of both houses of Congress and the president’s signature), that leaves it in the hands of the Senate Intelligence Committee, at least for now. So far, chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) and vice chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) are trying to communicate that they’re working closely together in the most serious way possible. And it may be that the buffoonery coming from the House side only increases the pressure on them to do a good job (after all, every senator loves to show that their body is made up of serious statesmen while the House is a bunch of dingbats).

There’s something else to consider as well. Nineteen months from now there will be a midterm election, and it’s entirely possible that Democrats will win control of the House (them taking the Senate is theoretically possible, but given which seats are up, less likely). Should that happen, Dems would have the ability to go all Benghazi on the Russia scandal, investigating it with multiple committees and even setting up a special select committee if the Speaker were so inclined.