Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 11:54 am
The likelihood that California GOP Rep. Devin Nunes will face an ethics investigation increased on Tuesday as the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment report shows frequent telephone communications between the White House, Rudy Giuliani and Nunes.
According to The Wall Street Journal, “Call records obtained by impeachment investigators revealed new details about Rudy Giuliani’s interactions with the White House, his associates and Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.”
The report shows Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee and one of Donald Trump’s staunchest defenders, in close contact with key figures in the ongoing impeachment inquiry.
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The Wall Street Journal calls the frequency of communication between the White House, Giuliani and his indicted associate “highly unusual.”
More from the report:
The records of those calls were included in a draft report by the House Intelligence Committee released Tuesday, which said that President Trump abused his office for personal and political gain by pressuring Ukraine—with the help of the president’s personal attorney, Mr. Giuliani—to announce investigations that could benefit Mr. Trump in next year’s election.
The phone records suggest Mr. Giuliani’s deep involvement in several key episodes that have become a focus of the impeachment probe. The frequent contacts between Mr. Nunes and two figures at the center of the inquiry—Mr. Giuliani and one of his indicted associates—are highly unusual and likely to renew calls from Democrats for Mr. Nunes to face an ethics inquiry.
A lawyer for the Giuliani associate, Lev Parnas, said his client’s conversations with Mr. Nunes in April were focused on corruption investigations in Ukraine. By that point, Mr. Parnas had for months been helping Mr. Giuliani push Ukraine to investigate Democrat Joe Biden and alleged interference by Ukraine in the 2016 U.S. election—the effort that set off the impeachment inquiry.
One member of the House Intelligence Committee who isn’t surprised by Nunes’ involvement in Trump’s Ukraine shakedown is Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, who said on Tuesday that the California lawmaker has a history of being involved in this president’s schemes.
“[Nunes] was projecting on Schiff what he was actually doing, which was ensnaring himself and involving himself with indicted witnesses in this investigation,” Swalwell said.
Video:
Rep. @ericswalwell says it doesn’t surprise him at all that Devin Nunes was essentially acting as an “operative” in Trump’s Ukraine scheme. #ctl #p2 pic.twitter.com/Yiz7eynKSE
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) December 4, 2019
Devin Nunes appears to be a key player in Trump’s Ukraine scheme
A growing body of evidence seems to indicate that Devin Nunes was a key player in Donald Trump’s scheme to bribe Ukraine into handing over political dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden.
As the reporting notes, Nunes was in contact with Giuliani’s indicted associate, Lev Parnas, smack in the middle of the Ukraine pressure campaign. It’s highly unlikely that Nunes wasn’t aware of what was going on, particularly since the “secret mission” Parnas was given by the president was to push Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.
At the very least, Nunes should be removed from anything related to the inquiry into Trump’s Ukraine scheme. He has no business helping lead an investigation into a scandal that clearly involved him.
As I wrote last month, Devin Nunes shouldn’t be part of conducting an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump. If anything, the congressman should be a subject of the investigation.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
