Eight days ago, Rep. Devin Nunes, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, rushed to tell reporters and then the president and then reporters again a SCANDALOUS thing he had learned from "whistleblower-type people." NOBUMMER HAD BEEN DOING "WIRE TAPPS" TO DADDY TRUMP ALL ALONG! Well, not wire taps per se. And everything was legal. It definitely wasn't about Russia if that's what you're asking. In fact, Nunes admitted, agonizingly, the names of Americans talking to foreign banks or spies or whatever, who knows -- which FISA courts had permitted, Nunes confirmed -- weren't even "unmasked" in the first place. It's just that when he read the intel reports, he could tell who they were talking about. (Prob def Mike Flynn.) This complete shambles of justice and invading of privacy of actual literal foreign agents lying about being foreign agents would not stand!

Nunes wasn't "bringing the potato salad to the MENSA picnic," but he did do one solid for his buddies in the Trump administration, whose transition he'd served on: At least after his wild ride, nobody was talking about Paul Manafort's $10 MILLION a year to "benefit the Putin government in the US."

As we said, it's been eight days -- and STILL Nunes has declined to share the information he'd received from his "whistleblower type people" with anyone else on the House Intel Committee. But the shit's been dribbling out the side of that diaper, as shit will, and we've learned -- drip drip drip -- that Nunes first saw that intel at the White House.

And now, the New York Times reports, several administration officials have identified two people who gave it to him. They are "Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a lawyer who works on national security issues at the White House Counsel’s Office and formerly worked on the staff of the House Intelligence Committee."

To clarify the timeline, in our own inimitable completely unclear fashion:

• Donald Trump tweets he is the victim of Obama "wire tapps."
• Everybody laughs at him.
• Devin Nunes is all "yuh huh!" and tries to cover for him by confirming that members of the Trump administration have been rounded up in FISA "incidental collection."
• Somewhere in there, HR McMaster, Trump's National Security Adviser, tried to fire this one guy Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a Michael Flynn hire, from the NSC but ...
• Trump stepped in and said NOPE.
• Ezra Cohen-Watnick and Michael Ellis "blow the whistle" on this ... perfectly legal intel collection and Devin Nunes has a Wild Midnight Ride with spy Ubers to meet with them and see their intel, which he then refuses to show his own committee but does go to the press and then the president and then the press again.
• Nunes still refuses to show his committee.
• He refuses to show his committee some more.
• Everybody asks where he got his info. He won't say.
• Sean Spicer lets it slip in his TUESDAY press briefing that it was two guys, and that he knows it's two guys, and then tries to backpedal.
• The New York Timesis all "oh, you mean THESE two guys?"
• Sean Spicer says on Thursday ...today ... that the White House "recently" sent a letter to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate intel committees, offering to let them come see this intel.
• Also, this happens:

  

• So, like, presumably after the New York Times posted its story today.
• (Adam Schiff sort of confirms that last one in a presser this afternoon.)
• Evan was liveblogging the Senate Intel Committee Trump Russia hearing all day long so he was too busy to make sense of any of this for us and I had to do it.
• Evan finished liveblogging the Senate Intel Committee Trump Russia hearing, and will hopefully clean this all up before it posts.
• (HI YOU GUYS, IT IS EVAN, TALKING AT YOU FROM A REBECCA POST! IT'S ALL CLEANED UP NOW! -- Evan)

And there you have it! As of press time, House Speaker Paul Ryan had not removed Devin Nunes from his role as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, because why would he? (One reason might be because it would appear that Nunes lied to Ryan about getting his information from a "whistle blower," something Ryan repeated as recently as THIS MORNING. Or maybe Paul Ryan is lying. Who even knows.) And Devin Nunes says he will continue as chair because "why would I not?"

These dumb fucking traitor fucks.

[NYT]

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