Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) has had very little power ever since Democrats took back the House and he fell from the chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee. But he is still trying to use his office to push right-wing narratives about intelligence and national security.
On Sunday, Nunes announced on Fox News that he would be sending eight criminal referrals to the Justice Department, including for people he alleges lied to Congress and to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts, and leaked classified information. He is also sending what he calls a "global leak referral," which does not name an individual person.
As CNN notes, these referrals are "effectively requests for a criminal investigation from the Justice Department and the FBI."
For two years, Nunes has tried to divert the Intelligence Committee away from investigating whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election in favor of President Donald Trump, instead choosing to investigate the people investigating Russia. One of his principal obsessions is the idea that members of the FBI lied about ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele's anti-Trump dossier to FISA court judges, which has been debunked, but is still used by Trump's conservative allies to allege the entire investigation is fruit of the poisoned tree.
Nunes has recently attracted attention for suing Twitter over a pair of parody accounts pretending to be his mother and a cow he owns.