Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said that he was suspicious beginning in the late summer of 2016, almost from the moment President Barack Obama’s CIA director, John Brennan, briefed him on Russian interference in the hotly contested presidential campaign between now-President Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

The California Republican, chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, had begged the Obama administration for years, he said, to address Russia’s illicit activities around the globe, but was instead stiff-armed. So when Brennan started making the rounds on Capitol Hill with warnings of Moscow’s interference in the heat of the political season, alarm bells starting ringing — not because he doubted Russian President Vladimir Putin was meddling, but because he wondered why now.