The way congressman Devin Nunes’s memo on alleged F.B.I. abuses was hyped, it was practically guaranteed to fall flat when it was released Friday. Despite weeks of promises that it would, among other things, make “Watergate [look] like stealing a Snickers bar from a drugstore”, its contents proved to be less a smoking gun and more a cheap diversion for Donald Trump’s base. Even Nunes’s Republican colleagues on the weekend news circuit seemed unimpressed. “I think it would be a mistake for anyone to suggest that the special counsel shouldn't complete his work,” G.O.P. Rep. Chris Stewart said on Fox News Sunday, when asked about Trump’s claim that the memo “totally vindicates” him. “The essence of this memo is something quite different.”

Despite the damage to his credibility, or perhaps because of it, Nunes is doubling down. Within hours of the memo’s release, the House Intelligence Committee chairman told Fox News that his campaign had just begun. “This completes just the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] abuse portion of our investigation,” Nunes told host Bret Baier, referring to the allegation within the memo that former F.B.I. and Justice Department officials used misleading information to obtain a warrant to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. “We are in the middle of what I call phase two of our investigation which involves other departments, specifically the State Department and the involvement they had in this,” Nunes continued. “That investigation is ongoing. We continue to work to find answers and asking the right questions to try to get to the bottom of what exactly the State Department was up to in terms of this Russian investigation.” A G.O.P. House member told Axios’s Jonathan Swan over the weekend that Nunes and other committee members could release as many as five additional reports: “Some have suggested coordination with Hillary Clinton operatives, [Sidney] Blumenthal, and [Cody] Shearer, to back up the false narrative.”

It appears, then, that Nunes has learned the fundamental lesson of Memo-gate: always milk the buildup. Benghazi and Clinton’s private e-mail server were useful punching bags because the alleged conspiracies were never resolved to Republicans’ satisfaction. Nunes, on the other hand, may have miscalculated by bringing the original hype-cycle to a conclusion. While trusty Trump allies like Sean Hannity and Sebastian Gorka are still describing the memo as 1,000 times bigger than Watergate, most Republican lawmakers seem to be treating it more as a Facebook post than an exposé. They aren’t likely to be impressed by forthcoming memos, either: On Friday, Nunes told The Weekly Standard that he won’t use the same declassification process in the future, suggesting that they won’t be sensitive enough to require approval from the House Intelligence Committee.

If Nunes’ subsequent memos are equally underwhelming, his machinations may do Trump more harm than good, particularly where Robert Mueller’s obstruction probe is concerned. If Trump’s hope was that the memo would discredit the Russia investigation, as he has reportedly suggested, he has also given Mueller more ammunition if and when he goes before a jury. On the other hand, any impeachment proceedings—if indeed that is the endgame—will ultimately be determined by politicians, not jurors. And in that capacity, the Trump-Nunes war on the F.B.I. appears to be working. A recent Axios-SurveyMonkey poll found that Trump’s disinformation machine has significantly moved the needle when it comes to public opinion of law-enforcement agencies; while 64 percent of Democrats have a favorable opinion of the F.B.I., the number among Republicans has plummeted to just 38 percent. Should Nunes continue to slow-walk his memos, in other words, he may find a receptive audience—at least on Fox News.