It’s been a few weeks since House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) made head-shaking news, so I guess we were due for a report like this one from Business Insider.
[Nunes suggested last night] he has a plan to target deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and FBI director Christopher Wray.
“We’re not going to just hold in contempt, we will have a plan to hold in contempt and to impeach,” Nunes said to Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Tuesday evening.
“We’re not messing around here,” Nunes continued.
Apparently the California Republican, an unnervingly close ally of the Trump White House, wants the Justice Department to give him copies of unredacted documents used to launch the investigation into the Russia scandal.
At issue are materials that document George Papadopoulos’ revelation that Russia had acquired damaging information on Hillary Clinton. The Justice Department and the FBI, perhaps skeptical of the increasingly ridiculous House Intelligence Committee, has been reluctant to play along with Nunes’ plan to undermine their investigation.
But that resistance has only infuriated Nunes, who insisted last night on Fox News, “We’re at a boiling point where we need this.” Asked if he’s willing to impeach the director of the FBI, the congressman added, “Absolutely.”
I won’t pretend to know what’s going to happen — Nunes has set a deadline for this evening, and he suggested he’s confident the Justice Department will comply with his demands — but it’s worth appreciating the absurdity of the circumstances.
The head of the House Intelligence Committee is a pro-Trump sycophant who’s repeatedly embarrassed himself while trying to protect his ally in the Oval Office. That same member of Congress is now publicly discussing the possibility of impeaching the Trump-appointed FBI director and deputy attorney general — during ongoing investigations that the far-right lawmaker disapproves of.
It’s against this backdrop that the president himself has said he’s siding with his congressional allies over his own appointed officials in federal law enforcement.
What a circus.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."