Rep. Devin Nunes ripped the selection of a former Department of Justice official who discredited the Republican lawmaker as he sought answers about the origins of a counterintelligence investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign.
David S. Kris, a former lawyer in the Obama administration, has been tapped by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to assist in a review of reforms to the FBI’s surveillance procedures by Judge James E. Boasberg, according to the Daily Caller.
“It’s hard to imagine a worse person the FISC could have chosen outside Comey, McCabe, or Schiff,” Nunes told the outlet. “The choice is shocking and inexplicable.”
A recent inspector general report found top FBI and Justice Department officials made 17 “significant errors or omissions” in obtaining Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants to monitor one-time Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill and in conservative media have used the scandal as evidence of a “deep state” that sought to undermine Trump.
Kris has been openly critical of Republicans such as Nunes and has appeared on MSNBC pundit Rachel Maddow’s show.
“The Nunes memo was dishonest. And if it is allowed to stand, we risk significant collateral damage to essential elements of our democracy,” Kris wrote in a 2018 blog post.
“The court must be trying to abolish itself,” Nunes said Sunday on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures. “So, the fact of all of the people in the swamp — granted the swamp isn’t very big, but there are several million people that live in this area — this is the guy you come up with; a guy accusing me of federal crimes? A guy that was defending the dirty cops at the FBI?”
