Nunes: Evidence Is There For Conspiracy Charges

Breitbart interviewed Devin Nunes on Sunday, and Nunes talked turkey on the type of charges he wants to see. I'm sure he's got an earful from people who are disgusted by Comey's juvenile--and probably very ill-advised--gloating at not being charged. Yet.

Here's a transcript of the most relevant parts of Nunes' remarks, including some commentary from Breitbart. I'm pleased that Nunes is thinking along the lines that I've outlined because, with all his dealings with people both in the Intel Community and at DoJ, Nunes must surely have a feel for where things are headed. That's grounds for optimism.

Nunes said in his exclusive interview on Breitbart News Sunday ... that despite the DOJ’s decision not to bring charges against Comey now, if the U.S. Attorney in Connecticut—who has been charged with investigating the origins of the Russia hoax investigation—follows a criminal referral made by House Intelligence Committee Republicans on the lines of a criminal conspiracy, Comey could face charges in that lane. 

“I always remind people that the Inspector General does not have a lot of power because they cannot—they don’t have subpoena power. They can only interview people who work for the actual agency, unless people will voluntarily be interviewed, which is not likely. So, I think the Inspector General did us a favor here because the House Intelligence Committee Republicans—we sent over referrals to the Department of Justice based on conspiracy. So now there is no question, one thing the Inspector General made clear by all the interviews and evidence that he gathered is that Comey is definitely part of the conspiracy.” 

Nunes continued by noting that Comey was not cooperative with congressional investigators digging into his leaking.

“You know, when Comey came before the Congress last year when Republicans controlled it, he refused to answer. For a guy that pontificates on Twitter and that wrote a book and goes on the news quite often, quite frequently, when it got behind closed doors and he had to tell the truth, his number one answer was, ‘Oh, I just don’t remember that’ or ‘I don’t recall.’” 

...

“So this is a guy who is definitely not telling the truth, and the good thing about the IG report is he’s now made himself, the IG has now made him eligible for a larger conspiracy charge—a criminal conspiracy charge—which is what we really hope the attorney general [U.S. attorney] out of Connecticut is able to do. That’s the big thing that we need. We need real charges brought. And I think a lot of people are frustrated because they feel like Comey leaked classified information. But the question is would a panel of jurors in Washington, D.C., [convict]? There would be so much ambiguity because he claims—I forget the exact numbers, but like 1, 4, and 7 contained classified information but those weren’t the memos that he gave to his professor friend that went to the media. It would be almost impossible to prove and he would probably skate. And probably the worst thing to happen would be for him to skate. So I think that in the end, the Attorney General made the right decision as long as they continue to press on the larger issue which is: How did this whole investigation begin in the first place with zero evidence, zero evidence that Trump had any involvement with Russia?” 

...

“I’ve been very careful. I shouldn’t be this way, but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and I like to not name names until there’s been a fair process and we’ve given the U.S. Attorney time to do his work. However, with that said, the one thing that is clear is if the U.S. Attorney decides to take our complaint—I’m not saying he’s going to do exactly what we’ve asked him to do but he’s clearly looking at all this. If he looks at conspiracy, on the FISA courts and the manipulation of intelligence for political purposes, it is now impossible—there is so much evidence that puts Comey right in the middle of this—so that’s my point. If they’re going to go down that road, Comey has got to be involved in it. The evidence is there.”