just like president trump, devin is a transactional politician and i ve seen that throughout his career. he has taken a lot of votes that would benefit himself and his future. and the only other policy he really has is to attack democrats. i know some people in washington, d.c. were surprised by this whole thing when it started last year, because representative nunes, his reputation back there for 14 years was a smart guy, a guy that was making the extra teenlg strategic moves to move up in the ranks in the republican party and had his loyalty rewarded. if you knew him back here in the valley, he has been a flame thrower from day one. and, remarkably, i don t know if you remember, chris, but in
2010, complaining about water allotments from the obama administration, he compared the president to robert mcgabe and hussein. that s strong. fairly strong. betsy although, in the central valley, that kind of rhetoric goes over well. you ve been talking to folks, betsy, on the hill about him. what are people on both sides of the aisle saying about watching this play out? one of the most interesting observations i heard today actually came from a former senior justice official. what that person told me was that when nunes was first named chairman of the intelligence committee, back in the previous era before this whole russia situation really started taking off, among folks who were in the national security law space and intelligence space, there were some immediate concerns. and part of the reason for those concerns was that nunes wasn t viewed as somebody who was a serious heavy hitter on intelligence matters. and what that would mean is that nunes was very much going to be
the second thing that this person i spoke with said generated a lot of concern was that nunes was viewed by somebody who was politically ambitious and sought out the limelight. that is not what the intelligence community wants from their watchdog. in fact, in contrast is senator burr from north carolina, the republican who heads the senate intelligence committee. that guy stays away from cameras. he stays away from reporters. in fact, there were concerns about his re-election bid by some republicans because he staunchly refused to hardly ever go on television because of the sensitivity of the matters he deals with. nunes, meanwhile, is somebody who pulls press conferences semi frequently and was viewed even
days over chairman nunes role to run the committee and whether he can do that given the actions he took to show he s too cozy to the white house when they were looking at any of the alleged contacts during the campaign season. democrats say they re going to participate and they have quite a deal with republicans over the exact witnesses that they want to bring forward inhadclucludinp associates. hear how key members are talking about the investigation as it stands. it s going forward, this basic agreement on the witness list. on flynn, carter page, manafort. i don t want to be jumping the gun but yowl rr see there is general agreement on the witness list. from what i know every individual will be called to witness. we don t have dates yet on
whether u.s. persons were involved. the second briefing with comey and with roger. has that been scheduled? no. and neither has the public hearing. one should not happen in lieu of the other. this morning you and your fellow democrats on the intelligence committee were briefed on intelligence reports. i know you can t talk about specific information. did it confirm what chairman nunes has been claiming? so far there still is zero evidence that the president was wire tapped or that president obama ordered him be surveilled and i ll just say the president, president trump, he holds these records. he can declassify them and i think it s telling that he hasn t and i don t believe he will. when will you see the actual documents? we re told we will see them