Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) can be heard on a secretly recorded tape warning that Republicans "have to keep all these seats" in November's midterm elections in order to protect President Donald Trump. | Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images Nunes on Russia investigation: 'We have to keep the majority'

Republicans' bulwark around President Donald Trump could be imperiled this fall if Democrats are able to seize control of the House of Representatives in the midterms, Rep. Devin Nunes appeared to warn in a secretly recorded audio tape.

"It's like your classic catch-22 situation. ... 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,” Nunes (R-Calif.) said, according to the tape. “I mean, we have to keep all these seats. We have to keep the majority. If we do not keep the majority, all of this goes away."


The recording was obtained and aired by "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC on Wednesday night. Nunes allegedly made the comments, which touch on Attorney General Jeff Sessions and special counsel Robert Mueller, at a private fundraiser last month for Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.).

Nunes, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, has been among the president's most staunch defenders on Capitol Hill, parroting the president's complaints about Mueller's Russia investigation and the media. The California congressman has become something of a controversial figure among lawmakers, recusing himself last year from his committee's Russia investigation after reports surfaced that Nunes relied on evidence he reviewed inside the White House compound to back the president's claim that his transition team had been the subject of government surveillance.

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Shortly before Congress began its summer recess, members of the arch-conservative House Freedom Caucus filed a resolution to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. According to the tape, Nunes said that impeachment would come down to timing.

"I've said publicly Rosenstein deserves to be impeached," Nunes said. "The question of the timing of it right before the election."

Nunes' spokesman Jack Langer defended the comments as "routine observations" in an email to POLITICO.

“It’s unsurprising to see the left-wing media spin Chairman Nunes’ routine observations as some nefarious plot, since these same media outlets spent the last year and a half touting a non-existent Russia collusion conspiracy," Langer said.