The total collapse in trust between Republicans and Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee during the Trump presidency has been a major story for more than a year now, and a new report in The Atlantic sheds some more light on how this breakdown occurred.
One former staffer who worked for a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee tells the publication that Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) used to have a good working relationship -- but he said that the Trump White House successfully pushed Nunes to throw up roadblocks in investigating potential Trump campaign ties with the Russian government.
"A decision to be bipartisan makes all the difference," the source said. "The Midnight Run was a mistake, but everything after that was a decision. And at the end of the day, Nunes decided not to be bipartisan. The pressure on him from the White House was too great."
Even some hardline conservatives, such as former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, have criticized Nunes for politicizing the intelligence committee and putting partisan loyalty above the committee's mission to oversee America's most vital secrets.
"He’s not searching for truth, he’s running interference for the White House, abdicating his role as a member of a coequal branch of government, dragging his fellow committee members down with him and exposing House leadership as ineffectual and foolish," Walsh wrote in an op-ed this past February. "As a former congressman — but more important, as a citizen — that’s not what I want."