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 guided and heavily influenced by the staff he chose. he wouldn t necessarily be in a
it? he s perfect for trump. 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
slam-dunk document it s been hyped up to be. joining me now a member of that committee, house intelligence committee, congressman joaquin castro. great to be here with you, chris. really important point here. the memo is a summary, we think, of a fisa warrant or documents around a fisa warrant. that i can t comment on. i just want to be clear. this is our understanding. adam schiff says i want to make sure i get this right that nunes hasn t read the underlying classified material. that s right. it s amazing this was even released to the white house and that it could be made public when it looks like chairman nunes didn t read it and only two people including adam schiff opt committee have read it. i have not read it. i said in that hearing i would prefer that neither memo be released the republican or democratic memo because nobody s going to be able to see the source material and make an independence judgment for themselves. i don t even understand. this is a fact that nun
position on individual level to make sense of some of the material he was faced with. 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 way back then as a person who really enjoyed the limelight and media attention. both of those things set off warning signs long before the russia stuff happened. so in many circles here in washingt
committee, house intelligence committee, congressman joaquin castro. great to be here with you, chris. really important point here. the memo is a summary, we think, of a fisa warrant or documents around a fisa warrant. that i can t comment on. i just want to be clear. this is our understanding. adam schiff says i want to make sure i get this right that nunes hasn t read the underlying classified material. that s right. it s amazing this was even released to the white house and that it could be made public when it looks like chairman nunes didn t read it and only two people including adam schiff opt committee have read it. i have not read it. i said in that hearing i would prefer that neither memo be released the republican or democratic memo because nobody s going to be able to see the source material and make an independence judgment for themselves. i don t even understand. this is a fact that nunes didn t read the source material? yeah.