President Trump on Monday is expected to give Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Washington Post reports.
Trump — who is using his final days in the White House in part to reward friends and allies with pardons and other decorations — is also expected to give Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), another confidant, the same award next week.
Fresno Bee: “Rep. Devin Nunes’s (R-CA) critics have obsessed over how he is paying for the six lawsuits he filed this year, but there are no public records showing how he has paid his Virginia lawyer.”
“That means Nunes is either paying for the lawsuits out of his own pocket, promising to pay his lawyer a portion of any money they’re awarded in court at a later date, or flouting House Ethics rules that would require him to publicly disclose who is funding the legal work.”
House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes (R-CA) told Fox News that it was “sickening” that Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) had obtained his phone records as part of the House’s impeachment inquiry.
Said Nunes: “I think the whole thing is just sickening, but he did it to one of my current staff members and one of my former staff members who he doesn’t like.”
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Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was interviewed by Sean Hannity on Fox News:
HANNITY: Did you ever talk to this guy Lev Parnas?
NUNES: You know it’s possible but I haven’t gone through all my phone records. I don’t really recall that name.
Charlie Sykes: “It is one thing to defend their party’s president against his partisan foes. This is hardly unprecedented. But the innovation of Trumpian hackery is the demand that hacks set their intellect, character and political future on fire.”
“Nunes is the very model of this new hackery. He is not merely Trump’s defender, he has become his doppelgänger and co-conspirator, willing to peddle discredited propaganda likely cooked up by Russian military intelligence if Trump demands it.”
“There are two possibilities here: Nunes knows that he is cynically using Trump-friendly talking points because they play well on Fox News, or he actually believes this fetid mass of falsehoods because, as Slate’s Will Saletan told me, ‘he’s been using his own product.’ It’s not clear which is worse, but the question goes to the essence of the new hackery.”
Fresno Bee: “For the first time in more than a decade, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) is reporting that he owns a stake in a farm. The new disclosure comes a year after Democratic groups accused Nunes of being a ‘fake farmer’ and unsuccessfully challenged his description of himself as a farmer on California ballots.”
“Nunes reported on a newly released financial disclosure form that he owns a Tulare County farm that generates no income for him and is worth less than $15,000.”
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) “revved up his fundraising in the second quarter of this year, hauling in far more money than any other incumbent in a district on the opposing party’s top target list for 2020,” McClatchy reports.
“Nunes has about $5.6 million in cash on hand, another number that blows most candidates out of the water.”
“So who is contributing to Nunes’ campaign? A small portion of Nunes’ donations come from within his district. About 4.3%, or just less than $80,000, came from his constituents this quarter.”
Constituents in Rep. Devin Nunes’ (R-CA) district “may find a curious campaign mailer on their doorsteps or in their mailboxes this week,” the Visalia Times-Delta reports.
“That mailer isn’t attacking his opponent in the November election or promoting the eight-term congressman’s accomplishments.”
“The glossy 38-page, full-color magazine titled The Fresno Bees: The dirty little secrets of the Valley’s propaganda machine contains criticisms of the McClatchy-owned newspaper’s coverage of the congressman in office since 2003.”
Ryan Lizza: “The Nunes family dairy of political lore—the one where his brother and parents work—isn’t in California. It’s in Iowa. Devin; his brother, Anthony III; and his parents, Anthony Jr. and Toni Dian, sold their California farmland in 2006. Anthony Jr. and Toni Dian, who has also been the treasurer of every one of Devin’s campaigns since 2001, used their cash from the sale to buy a dairy eighteen hundred miles away in Sibley, a small town in northwest Iowa where they—as well as Anthony III, Devin’s only sibling, and his wife, Lori—have lived since 2007.”
“There’s nothing particularly strange about a congressman’s family moving. But what is strange is that the family has apparently tried to conceal the move from the public—for more than a decade. As far as I could tell, as of late August, neither Nunes nor the local California press that covers him had ever publicly mentioned that his family dairy is no longer in Tulare.”
The Atlantic: “Earlier this month, as all eyes were on the courtroom dramas unfolding in Virginia—where President Donald Trump’s campaign chairman was just convicted on bank- and tax-fraud charges—and in New York—where the president’s longtime personal lawyer pleaded guilty to campaign-finance violations and implicated Trump in a crime—the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee was in London, seeking out new information about the former British intelligence officer and Trump-Russia dossier author Christopher Steele.”
“According to two people familiar with his trip across the pond who requested anonymity to discuss the chairman’s travels, Devin Nunes, a California Republican, was investigating, among other things, Steele’s own service record and whether British authorities had known about his repeated contact with a U.S. Justice Department official named Bruce Ohr. To that end, Nunes requested meetings with the heads of three different British agencies—MI5, MI6, and the Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ.”
Politico: “Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday defeated an attempt by panel Democrats to subpoena the interpreter who worked for President Donald Trump during his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin… Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) called for the vote to compel the interpreter to testify behind closed doors.”
“Chairman Devin Nunes initially declined to recognize Schiff’s motion before recessing the panel for about 20 minutes. When it reconvened, the committee voted along party lines, 11-6, to table Schiff’s attempt to bring the interpreter before the committee.”
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) “used political donations to pay for nearly $15,000 in tickets to Boston Celtics basketball games as well as winery tours and lavish trips to Las Vegas,” the Fresno Bee reports.
“Nunes has reportedly been a Celtics fan since high school, though he grew up in Tulare, California. He used the money from his political action committee last year on three occasions to buy tickets.”
Politico: “In a campaign ad running more than two minutes — and appearing not only online, but also on radio and TV — Nunes casts the dominant newspaper in his California district as a ‘band of creeping correspondents,’ criticizing The Fresno Bee for its routine reporting practices and for its coverage of a controversy surrounding a winery in which the Republican congressman invests.”
“While it is not unusual for a member of Congress to complain about the media, Nunes’ airing of a lengthy attack against a prominent local newspaper stands apart — especially in a campaign in which Nunes, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, has had little reason to date to spend money at all.”
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) “has become a fundraising geyser, raising approximately $4.4 million in the second quarter from tens of thousands of grassroots contributors who are rewarding the California Republican for defending President Trump against suggestions that he colluded with the Russians to win the White House,” the Washington Examiner reports.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s “ongoing battle with House Republicans reached new heights Tuesday, as the No. 2 senior leader of the Justice Department plans to call on the House to investigate its own committee staff,” CNN reports.
“Rosenstein has butted heads with House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes for months over a subpoena for documents related to the Russia investigation, but the battle spilled out into public view Tuesday after Fox News reported staff on the committee felt ‘personally attacked’ at a meeting with Rosenstein in January.”
Fresno Bee: “Rep. Devin Nunes’ big role in the unfolding drama between Justice Department and the Trump administration has drawn national headlines — and allowed him to collect big money from D.C. area donors. But the California Republican is also being dogged by accusations he’s no longer focused on his constituents.”
“Of the more than $1 million Nunes raised from individual donors, roughly $19,000, or 2 percent, came from people in his district, which includes chunks of Fresno and Tulare Counties. That’s the smallest percentage of any the eight California Republicans in Congress who Democrats are targeting for defeat this fall.”
In an interview with the Fresno Bee, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was asked if he planned to host any local forums or town hall meetings.
Responded Nunes: “Your paper is a joke to even bring these issues up or raise these issues.”
“In 2015, Alene Anase was asked by her employer Alpha Omega Winery to serve guests as part of a charity cruise on the San Francisco Bay. But what she expected to be a routine shift serving wine turned into a nightmare,” the Fresno Bee reports.
“The guests aboard the yacht that night — described in her 2016 lawsuit as 25 of the Napa Valley-based winery’s top investors, all men — were openly using what appeared to be cocaine and ‘drawing straws’ for which sex worker to hire.”
One of the investors: Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA).
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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