Representing California’s 22nd congressional district since 2003, Devin Nunes has been making headlines in the past year as a member of the House Intelligence Committee. In an interview with the Washington Examiner’s David Drucker, Nunes emphasized that his aim is to “clean up this mess” at the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation — a mess he blamed on a counterintelligence probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion by Trump or his associates. He describes this probe as flawed and says it began on false pretenses.

The congressman, a staunch Trump defender and chief antagonist of the Robert Mueller probe, said he agreed with the intelligence agencies’ original conclusion from the summer of 2016 — that Putin was interfering in the presidential campaign “to sow discord.”