Countable Explains: Who's Who in the Russia Investigation

Devin Nunes

Role:

Chairman of the House Intelligence committee, Congressman from California.

Quote:

"It’s a judgement call on my part. At the end of the day, sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you don’t."

— Nunes, on why he spoke with Trump and the media before Democratic members of his own committee

Key dates:

• March 4, 2017: Trump tweets, "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!" During this time, Nunes’ committee is supposed be conducting an independent investigation of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.

• March 22, 2017: Nunes gives a news conference where he suggests that Trump and his associates might have been "incidentally" recorded during foreign surveillance by American intelligence agencies. Following the news conference, Nunes goes and briefs the President.

• The Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee does all of this before speaking with the House Intelligence Committee Panel. (It would later be revealed that the source for Nunes’ intelligence report info were White House officials.)

• April 2017: after an investigation is launched by the House Ethics Committee about Nunes’ behavior, the California representative partially recuses himself from the Intelligence committee’s Russia investigation.

• May 2017: Nunes issues subpoenas to the CIA, FBI, and NSA for details about why Obama administration officials requested the "unmasking" of Trump associates in intelligence reports. (Leaking the identities of U.S. citizens named in intelligence reports is illegal.)

• August 2017: Nunes and the Intelligence committee’s Republican staff send a series of subpoenas to the FBI related to the agency’s involvement with the Steele dossier.

• As of September 22, 2017, the FBI hasn’t turned over the subpoenaed documents.

• Late September 2017: the above dossier and the "unmasking" continue to be a focus of Nunes. He’s stated he’s seen evidence the unmasking occurred from, among others, Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice.

Current mood:

Unhappy. Nunes blamed his recusal on "leftwing activist groups" lobbing charges that were “entirely false and politically motivated.”