One of the weirdest things about the impeachment hearings is the number of times Devin Nunes has said the words “nude pictures of President Trump.” The Republican from Fresno, California, said those words at the outset of hearings on three different days. I don’t recall anyone else ever talking about “nude pictures of President Trump”—though I do remember talk of a pee tape—which makes me wonder: Why does Nunes keep trying so hard to make “nude pics of Trump” a thing? Is this a distraction tactic? Is he… hiding something?
I mean, obviously, he’s hiding something—Trump’s involvement in the Ukraine scandal—but it didn’t occur to me until late last week that maybe Nunes is also trying to hide something about himself. The Daily Beast first reported last Wednesday that Lev Parnas, the recently arrested Ukrainian associate of Rudy Giuliani, is ready to testify before Congress that Devin Nunes flew to Vienna to meet personally with Ukrainian officials about investigating the Bidens. By Friday, CNN reported the same thing, with new details.
When CNN first tried to ask Nunes if this trip took place, Nunes “interjected” and replied, “I don’t talk to you in this lifetime or the next lifetime.”
Nunes added, “At any time. On any question.”
When CNN tried to get Nunes’s side of the story again days later, Nunes said, “To be perfectly clear, I don’t acknowledge any questions from you in this lifetime or the next lifetime. I don’t acknowledge any question from you ever.”
Sounds just like what someone with nothing to hide would say!
The CNN report added more details to the picture. Congressional travel records show that “Nunes and three aides traveled to Europe from November 30 to December 3, 2018,” CNN writes, and according to Parnas, Nunes timed his trip “after the mid-term elections yet before Congress’ return to session” so that “Nunes would not have to disclose the trip details to his Democrat colleagues in Congress.”
Why is Parnas—who also says he personally had multiple conversations with Nunes about investigating the Bidens—such a blabberbucket all of a sudden? Reportedly, it’s because he’s pissed off that Trump pretended not to know him after he was arrested.
Not only did Nunes and Parnas discuss investigating the Bidens, according to Parnas’s account as reported by CNN, but “Nunes told Parnas that he was conducting his own investigation into the Bidens and asked Parnas for help validating information he’d gathered from conversations with various current and former Ukrainian officials, including Shokin. ” (Shokin was the corrupt prosecutor who Joe Biden got fired, and it is Shokin who has been peddling this Biden/Burisma conspiracy theory to Giuliani and Trump ever since, evidently as retribution.)
Why the hell would Nunes be conducting his own investigation into the Bidens? Gosh, I wonder. Yeah, I just can’t think of any reason at all. If it’s true, isn’t it just such a weird coincidence that Trump’s number one ass-kisser would be out trying to investigate the Bidens months before Trump had asked Ukraine’s president to do the same thing?
CNN also reported there was a “series of regular meetings” of Trump’s associates to discuss the Bidens and Ukraine at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, according to Parnas. The attendees of the meetings included Giuliani, Trump’s husband-and-wife lawyer team of Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, and a Nunes employee (whom Parnas says was Nunes’s proxy). They “met several times a week in a private room at the BLT restaurant on the second floor of the Trump Hotel,” CNN reports. Several times a week!
Nunes has since announced that he is suing CNN and the Daily Beast for these stories about his alleged dealings with the Ukrainians. Given that, want to watch some CNN coverage of the whole mess? Seems only right to give CNN the clicks:
As for Nunes saying he’s going to sue, what’s his legal basis? What is it that he is going to sue CNN and the Daily Beast for? For… talking to Parnas! The same guy he used to talk to all the time!
Nunes unveiled his, uh, um, interesting legal theory about his case against CNN and the Daily Beast on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures yesterday. (Follow that link to watch; I can’t get the embed to work correctly.)
Nunes said:
We are going to take both CNN and The Daily Beast likely into federal court right after Thanksgiving. And we hope they cooperate, because we’re also going to be working with the appropriate law enforcement authorities, because it is not OK to work with someone who has been indicted on serious federal crime to build a media narrative and dirty up a member of Congress.
By “a member of Congress,” he means himself, and by “work with,” Nunes apparently means “quote.” It is not, in fact, illegal for a news outlet to quote (or work with!) someone who has been charged with a crime, or even someone who’s been convicted of a crime. Maria Bartiromo, the host of Sunday Morning Futures, seemed a little confused about Nunes’s impending lawsuit against CNN and the Daily Beast, but she tried to focus on substance: “Bottom line, were you in Vienna with Shokin?”
“I really want to answer all of these questions,” Nunes replied, followed by a word salad I’m just going to give you a few tasty morsels of because you’re busy and I’m busy and he’s dodging and weaving anyway:
• “I absolutely will come back on the show and answer these questions. But because there is criminal activity here, we’re working with the appropriate law enforcement agencies. We’re going to file all this.”
• “I can’t compete by trying to debate this out with the public media when 90 percent of the media are totally corrupt… I’m not going to sit here and try to compete against the media that I have no chance of winning with.”
• CNN and the Daily Beast “will have to show how they worked with somebody who’s been indicted, which is likely conspiring to obstruct justice here.”
LOL. The way this guy just throws out random phrases he’s heard other smart people say cracks me up. He thinks CNN writing an article in which they quote Parnas equals conspiracy “to obstruct justice”? Good luck in court, Devin.
“So, I want to just be clear before I move on,” Bartiromo pressed. “You’re saying you’re suing CNN, you’re going to sue Daily Beast. I know you have sued Twitter in the past. Do you think this is going somewhere? You’re telling me that CNN committed criminal activity?”
“Well, it’s—it’s very likely, or they’re—or they’re an accessory to it, right?” Nunes stammered. “So—so, none of this is true. That’s—what I have said—my statement is, it’s demonstrably false. We will get to all the facts when it’s filed in court. So—but, somehow, they’re either—they’re either witting or unwitting listening to somebody who’s been indicted… So you’re talking about third- and fourth-hand hearsay to do what? To dirty up the leader of the Republicans on the Intelligence Committee… The media has become totally corrupt that now they’re willing to actually engage and help with criminals, indicted criminals.”
“Mm-hmm,” Bartiromo said.
“These people are sick,” Nunes said.
Bartiromo steered the conversation back to the impeachment hearings and asked how Nunes thought it went.
“Couldn’t be any better,” Nunes replied.
Well, there you have it. Must have gone super well, then. Devin Nunes, everyone—the pride of Fresno.
