While driving to an appointment this afternoon, I was listening to all things considered on NPR. There was a brief story checking in on the progress or lack thereof of investigations into trump and Russian connections. I must admit that I have lost sight of the ball. I learned that I'm behind on a few concerns on this subject. I also learned that the basic premise for an independent prosecutor is being borne out. Big surprise.
On the stuff I missed front, I learned that Devin Nunes is under investigation by the House ethics committee. The issue under investigation is his 'alleged' mishandling of classified documents. I am embarrassed that I am 20 days behind on this one. On April 6th, Nunes announced that he was stepping aside from heading up the House Intelligence Committee's investigation into the whole Russian question. He announced his recusal shortly before (26 minutes to be exact) the ethics committee announced its investigation of Nunes. This, from the putz that answered "why would I" when asked if he would step aside by reporters on March 28th. As a reminder, the call for his recusal came after his secret meeting on White House grounds to receive information from an unnamed source about trump being wire tapped. Texas Republican K. Michael Conway will now lead the investigation as the top ranking Republican on the committee. We'll see how that moves along starting May 8th when the intel committee has scheduled a hearing in an attempt to restart the investigation. Former acting Attorney general, Sally Yates who was infamously fired by trump has been asked to testify along with former Director of National Intelligence for the Obama administration, Jame Clapper.
The NPR report also noted that the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation is devolving into a partisan battle over what needs to be the focus of its investigation; trumps completely unsubstantiated claims about
allegedly being "wire tapped" by President Obama or the trump campaign's possible ties with Russia during the campaign. There are also reports that the Senate investigation is stagnating with no significant witnesses being interviewed in the committee's closed door hearings. The Senate Committee has not subpoenaed any documents, including, but not limited to, trump's tax returns for the last seven years.
Now it doesn't take a whole lot of brains to understand that, with a Republican administration and both houses of Congress being Republican, any results that clear trump in any way will be tainted by the perception of a white wash. As far as I'm concerned, that would not only be a perception, it would simply be the truth. As I have called for in previous posts, I will call for again, now, and will continue to do so until it happens, we need an independent prosecutor. Period. No ifs ands or buts. Enough of this stalling horse shit. Left or right, we know wrong.
Of course Congress is focused on keeping our government running, and only have three days left, as I write this late at night. I'll stay away from them for the remainder of this week, but starting next week I will resume my phone calls to key representatives, to demand an independent prosecutor. Below are the links for House and Senate representative's contact information. I urge you to do the same.
http://www.house.gov/representatives/
https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/25/525542524/yates-clapper-to-testify-in-open-house-hearing-on-russian-election-meddling
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/us/politics/devin-nunes-house-intelligence-committee-russia.html?_r=0
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