After special counsel Robert Mueller confirmed his longtime assertion that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russia, House Intelligence Committee ranking Member Devin Nunes is “going on offense” to probe the origin of the collusion claims.
Nunes plans to send a criminal referral next week to the Justice Department detailing “multiple referrals on a number of different crimes” as part of an investigation of alleged misconduct by the DOJ and the FBI, Breitbart News reported.
The alleged crimes include leaking classified information, perjury and criminal conspiracy.
Nunes told Breitbart regarding the collusion charge that he and his colleagues “knew this was a joke from the beginning, and I’ve said as much for a long time.”
Under Nunes’ leadership, the intelligence committee conducted a parallel investigation of the collusion allegation that was completed last year. The Republicans concluded there was no collusion, while Democrats disputed the findings.
“But now, the real work begins,” Nunes told Breitbart. “It’s good to not have that sitting out there. But we have to now go on offense and track down all these dirty cops and bad players.”
Nunes plans to interview about 50 people who were involved in pushing the anti-Trump “dossier” funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The document was used to obtain a warrant to surveil then-Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
The FBI claims its probe of the Trump campaign began in late July 2016. But Nunes said he and his allies are “quite confident that this investigation started long before they told us that it did.”
He believes orders came from the Obama White House but said it’s unclear how much President Obama was involved.
“Look, there’s big problems — big problems that the public needs to know about. Maximum transparency is the best thing here,” he told Breitbart.
Nunes said he believes Barr will have to act on his criminal referral.
“There’ll be things in there that cannot be ignored. There will be crimes … so they have to be dealt with,” he said.
Nunes told Fox News his Democratic colleagues who still insisted Trump colluded with Russia “are chasing Chupacabra,” referring to the mythical beast
“That really is what they’re looking for … unicorns, the Lochness monster—they’re interchangeable,” he said.
All nine Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee have called on Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., to resign.
In a contentious hearing Thursday, he was accused of crafting a “demonstrably false” narrative that undermines the panel’s credibility.
