CONNOR HOFFMAN
Managing Editor
Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman for the House Intelligence Committee, must step down from his role as chairman, and we must have an independent investigation of the Trump campaign and possibly Nunes himself. Nunes was supposed to be investigating the Trump campaign for collusion with Russia, but his recent actions have seriously put his independence into question.
His recent bizarre and questionable actions began on the night of March 21. That night, Nunes, who was in an Uber with one of his staffers, suddenly received a phone call, after which he immediately got out and headed to the White House grounds, according to the New York Times. The next morning, Nunes held a press conference to announce that he found evidence that the Trump campaign had been the victim of incidental surveillance.
Nunes has, for the last few weeks, adamantly refused to disclose the source of the “evidence” that he received on that night. The Times reported on March 30 that the source of Nunes’ intelligence was two White House officials. He has even refused to show the evidence to the other committee members.
President Donald Trump has since used this “evidence” that Nunes received that night to validate his completely ludicrous tweet that accused former President Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower. “Nunes said, so that means I’m right,” said Trump in a March 23 interview with Time magazine.
Feeling validated now, Trump has continued to accuse Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower, despite tons of intelligence officials denying Trump’s claim.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the top ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, recently saw the evidence, and he did not feel that it validated Nunes’ recent behavior.
“It was represented to me that these are precisely the same materials that were provided to the chairman over a week ago. While I cannot discuss the content of the documents, if the White House had any concern over these materials they should have been shared with the full committees in the first place as a part of our ordinary oversight responsibilities,” wrote Schiff. “Nothing I could see today warranted a departure from the normal review procedures.”
This kind of behavior from Nunes is so out of the ordinary that it really raises some questions as to why he has been acting the way he has lately. Why, exactly, did Nunes have to be so secretive of his sources and not even share it with his own committee members?
All of this craziness is starting to hit a boiling point. In fact, a majority of the American people support an independent investigation into the possible collusion of the Trump campaign and the Russian government. An Associated Press- NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, conducted from March 23 to 27, found that 52 percent of Americans support an independent investigation.
It is now clear that Nunes is nowhere near independent enough of the Trump administration to effectively investigate whether or not anyone in the Trump campaign possibly colluded with the Russian government. Even if the allegations against the Trump campaign are not true, the American people deserve to have this properly investigated, and we must have an independent investigation now because of Nunes’ actions.