Press: The GOP’S giant nothing burger

Some 26 centuries later, one of the greatest sources of wisdom remains the classic collection of Aesop’s Fables. Especially relevant today is the talk of the mountain that labored for months only to give birth to a mouse. You remember how it goes:

A mountain was once greatly agitated. Loud groans and noises were heard, and crowds of people came from all parts to see what was the matter. While they were assembled in anxious expectation of some terrible calamity, out came a mouse.

The moral of the fable is clear: Don’t make much ado about nothing. 

{mosads}Too bad House Republicans and Donald Trump didn’t heed that lesson before they decided to release the Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) memo. In so doing, they not only tarnished the reputation of the entire FBI, they destroyed the claim of the Republican Party as the party of law and order.

First mistake: trusting Nunes in the first place. He has zero credibility. Only a year ago, he was forced to cut any ties with the Russia investigation when, after vowing to alert the White House about explosive evidence he’d discovered of Trump campaign officials under surveillance, he was forced to admit he’d been spoon fed that information by the White House itself.

In releasing a memo prepared for the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes again promised explosive evidence. This time, he said the FBI had proven it was politically motivated — pro-Hillary, anti-Trump — by relying exclusively on a dossier prepared by Clinton-paid Christopher Steele to obtain FISA authorization to begin surveillance of Trump advisor Carter Page, thereby triggering the Robert Mueller investigation. Yet the memo proved none of the above. It’s a giant nothing burger. It’s the cigar that blew up in the face of Donald Trump and House Republicans.

Read the memo. It contradicts everything Trump claimed ahead of time. Did the FBI rely exclusively on the Steele dossier to get a FISA warrant? No. The Fusion GPS document was only one of several sources provided to justify surveillance of Page — who was first suspected of spying for Russia, and first placed under surveillance, in 2013.

Did the Carter Page request trigger the FBI’s investigation of possible collusion with Russia by Trump campaign officials? No. As the memo itself reveals, that probe actually started months earlier, when the FBI learned of meetings with Russian officials held by Trump aide George Papadopoulos.

Was the FBI secretly working to help Hillary Clinton and hurt Donald Trump? That’s the most ludicrous claim of all. Many Democrats believe that Clinton would be president today had James Comey not reopened the Clinton email investigation on Oct. 28, just 10 days before the election — for which Comey was effusively praised by Donald Trump.

In the end, the long-awaited Trump/Nunes memo proves nothing except how far congressional Republicans are willing to go — even declaring war on the Justice Department and the FBI — in order to shield Donald Trump from the special counsel. But they’re kidding nobody but themselves. Because, in the end, it will be Robert Mueller who writes the final chapter about collusion and obstruction of justice. And not Devin Nunes.

Press is host of “The Bill Press Show” on Free Speech TV and author of “Buyer’s Remorse: How Obama Let Progressives Down.”