Victor Davis Hanson--Demonization of Nunes Is a Window into Our Times – American Greatness

Demonization of Nunes Is a Window into Our Times – American Greatness
"Much of what we now know about the unethical and often illegal behavior of the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency, and Department of Justice emerged due to the efforts of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. 
Its chairman during its stunning disclosures has been Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who in turn has been constantly demonized for his efforts.
Yet without the committee’s digging, Americans would not have known 

• that Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid for an unsubstantiated 2016 dossier on Donald Trump compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.
• ...the FBI and Justice Department used unverified information from the Steele dossier to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing for the surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
• ...Americans would not have had any idea that Bruce Ohr, who once ranked fourth in the Department of Justice hierarchy, coordinated opposition research on Trump with Steele, the FBI and Fusion GPS. Ohr took this unethical step because his wife was working for Fusion GPS—a fact that was withheld on federal disclosure forms.
• ...uncovered the names of prominent FBI and Justice Department officials—including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Rod Rosenstein, and Sally Yates—who had approved FISA court warrant applications that were based on the largely discredited Steele dossier.
• Most dramatically, we learned that members of the Obama Administration had unmasked the names of U.S. citizens swept up in government surveillance. Many of those names were illegally leaked to the press. This disclosure forced former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power and former National Security Adviser Susan Rice to confess that they had requested most of the unmaskings. Rice had previously denied it.
• The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence also confirmed that FBI agents had interviewed former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and did not think he had lied to them concerning his contact with a top Russian diplomat.

No one so far has refuted the committee’s findings. 
Yet Chairman Nunes has become the subject of unprecedented venom, largely because a spate of further embarrassing scandals at the FBI, Justice Department, and CIA have resulted from his committee’s findings.
...More ironies abound. 
Prior to 2016, Nunes was praised by both conservatives and liberals for his warnings to the Obama Administration about the dangers from Russian cyberattacks and meddling in U.S. affairs...
The demonization of Nunes is a window into our times. 

• We hunt for mythical Russian collusion while foreign collusion between Christopher Steele and his Russian sources is ignored. 
• Progressives who claim an affinity for the middle classes demonize farmers as hicks. 
• A supposedly noble press prints fake news and traces down someone’s long-dead great-grandmother to suggest divided loyalties.

The real question is not why today’s jaded media go to such lengths to slander Nunes, but why they are so afraid of him."
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