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Devin Nunes refuses to say if he crafted anti-FBI memo in concert with the White House

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Rep Devin Nunes (Photo: Facebook)

House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) on Tuesday declined to say whether he worked with the White House on the anti-FBI memo written by members of his staff, the Daily Beast reports.

His refusal came during a closed-door committee meeting, during which Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) asked Nunes if his staffers engaged with the White House as they wrote the memo alleging improper surveillance by the FBI during the 2016 presidential election.

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That memo has created a political firestorm in recent weeks with leading Republican figures demanding the release of the memo while simultaneous deferring to the Trump administration on whether to actually release it. Democrats have accused the Nunes memo of being a political ploy designed to provide cover to Donald Trump in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

As the Beast reports, Nunes told Quigley, “I’m not answering” when asked point-blank about possible communications with the White House.

Nunes’ non-denial recalls a similar effort he made last year on behalf of the Trump administration. In March the House Intelligence Committee chairman held a press conference alleging former President Barack Obama’s Justice Department “unmasked” Trump officials.

According to Nunes, people related to the Trump transition team (which the House intel chairman was himself on) were swept up in “incidental surveillance” and improperly monitored by the former administration.

It was later reported Nunes received that information during a clandestine meeting with two White House officials—the day after former FBI Director James Comeys’ devastating testimony before Nunes’ committee.

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According to Trump, Nunes’ press conference “somewhat vindicated” his baseless claim that Obama “wire tapped” Trump Tower in 2016. As the News Yorker’s Ryan Lizza reported last year, in the aftermath of that unsubstantiated claim, the White House put out an “all-points bulletin” to “find something” that would validate Trump’s charge.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, has said “the unmasking thing was all created by Devin Nunes.”


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Trump pal Piers Morgan pens brutal political obituary: ‘He’s losing bigly’ to Joe Biden

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Writing in the Daily Mail this Thursday, British TV host and commentator Piers Morgan declared that "Donald Trump is losing."

"The man who devotes every second of his waking life to the obsessive pursuit of winning is staring down the barrel of an election loss in four weeks that could be a total blow-out," Morgan writes, citing a new CNN/SSR poll released yesterday that shows Trump to be 16 points behind Joe Biden.

"The country is ravaged by coronavirus, suffering by far the worst death toll in the world and now experiencing a scary second wave in many states that threatens to send the current number of 210,000 fatalities much higher. It's also been crippled by a devastating collapse in the US economy and jobs," Morgan writes. "And the death of George Floyd sparked huge and sometimes very violent protests, massively increased racial tensions and raging culture wars. The combined effect of all this is that America is on its knees and desperate for someone, anyone to save and revive them. But President Trump's singularly failed to be that person."

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Dr. Bright was ‘horrified’ that the White House would call and demand he develop way to inject disinfectant

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In his first interview since leaving the government, Dr. Rick Bright told CNN's Jake Tapper that government scientists are very seriously concerned that President Donald Trump will "rewrite science" or "come up with fake science" to justify their politics.

Dr. Bright initially was reassigned to the NIH while he was working on developing a coronavirus vaccine and therapeutics for the COVID-19 outbreak. He suspected it was politically motivated because he refused to push Hydroxychloroquine, a drug that Trump falsely decided would cure the coronavirus. The president has since backed off of Hydroxychloroquine being a "miracle" or a "cure-all."

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2020 Election

Mike Pence abruptly cancels trip to vote early in Indiana — but spokesman claims ‘nobody’s sick’

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Vice President Mike Pence has canceled a plan to travel to Indianapolis to vote early in the 2020 presidential election.

Olivia Nuzzi, Washington correspondent for New York Magazine was scheduled to be the print pool reporter and the trip and reports that planning was still underway within an hour of the cancelation.

Here's Nuzzi's thread on the breaking news:

Vice President Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence had been scheduled to travel to Indianapolis to cast their ballots by early voting. The trip had been on the books for at least 9 days. The White House provided NO EXPLANATION for Pence’s sudden change of plans.

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