Politico
reports on a story with manifold ramifications:
Members of the Donald Trump transition team, possibly including Trump himself, were under surveillance during the Obama administration following November’s election, House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes told reporters Wednesday. Nunes said the surveillance appears to have been legal, incidental collection and that it does not appear to have been related to concerns over collusion with Russia. Nunes is going to the White House later Wednesday to brief the Trump administration on what he has learned, which he said came from “sources.”who thought that we should know it.” He said he was trying to get more information by Friday from the FBI, CIA and NSA.
Nunes described the surveillance as most likely being “incidental collection.” This can occur when a person inside the United States communicates with a foreign target of U.S. surveillance. In such cases, the identities of U.S. citizens are supposed to be kept secret — but can be “unmasked” by intelligence officials under certain circumstances.
Nunes said his new information appears to show that additional members of the Trump transition team — beyond former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn — were unmasked. This means they were identified in U.S. intelligence reports.
He said the information that he had seen and was disseminated across the intelligence community appeared to him to have "little or no apparent intelligence value."
I would like to withhold further comment until we know more, developing…
The question is. . .does Nunes have any interest in downplaying the impact of the investigation and of the findings?
And it seems that he may be very interested in keeping that investigations as a mere "sideline" rather than the very real, very deep threat to Trump's position:
"The stunt by Devin Nunes was clumsy, risky, suspicious, desperate, and likely to backfire on him. So why is Nunes putting himself at such great risk to try to create a distraction on Trump’s behalf? Let’s talk about the financial business that Nunes conducts with Russia. In addition to being a Congressman, he’s part owner of Alpha Omega Winery LLC. According to the
Los Angeles Times he has $50,000 of his own money tied up in the winery, which is remarkable considering that the same report lists his
total net worth at just $51,002. In other words, the winery is all Nunes has.
According to Scott Dworkin of the respected Democratic Coalition Against Trump, the Nunes’ winery
has a Russian distributor who is close to Vladimir Putin. This means Nunes has the vast majority of his small net worth tied up in a business venture which partially relies on sales in Russia. At the least, Nunes benefits greatly if Trump remains in office long enough to continue repealing Russian sanctions. Is this why Nunes is so desperate to protect Trump?
The stunt by Devin Nunes was clumsy, risky, suspicious, desperate, and likely to backfire on him. So why is Nunes putting himself at such great risk to try to create a distraction on Trump’s behalf? Let’s talk about the financial business that Nunes conducts with Russia. In addition to being a Congressman, he’s part owner of Alpha Omega Winery LLC. According to the
Los Angeles Times he has $50,000 of his own money tied up in the winery, which is remarkable considering that the same report lists his
total net worth at just $51,002. In other words, the winery is all Nunes has.
According to Scott Dworkin of the respected Democratic Coalition Against Trump, the Nunes’ winery
has a Russian distributor who is close to Vladimir Putin. This means Nunes has the vast majority of his small net worth tied up in a business venture which partially relies on sales in Russia. At the least, Nunes benefits greatly if Trump remains in office long enough to continue repealing Russian sanctions. Is this why Nunes is so desperate to protect Trump?"
Devin Nunes has most of his net worth tied up in a company that does ...
https://www.palmerreport.com/news/russia-devin-nunes-donald-trump/2019/