The Nunes Memo

It's complete crap.

There are a number of what appear to be elementary factual errors, but it's basically a nothing-burger.

It is also a document that should ever have been classified at any level.

The claims that its release would compromise national security are, and ALWAYS HAS BEEN six pounds of sh%$ in a 5 pound bag.

Everyone involved in this knew this before the release, because the summaries that had been floating about made that quite clear,

The claims of security damage were made because the FBI did not want a criticism of their actions to be made public.

The bottom line is that Devin Nunes peddled a sh%$ sandwich for explicitly partisan political purposes.

There is nothing shocking about this:  This is what politicians, particularly hacks like Nunes do.

The objections, and the hysteria from the US state security apparatus is rather more concerning.  They are, as they frequently have in the past, attempted to short circuit any meaningful oversight by making bogus claims of national security consequences.

What is probably most significant is that this is the first time ever that the House Intelligence Committee has declassified a document unilaterally using Clause 11(g) of Rule X of the House rules.

What this means is that the intelligence apparatus was unable to delay, suppress, or rewrite this document to its liking.

This rule has been in existence since the 1970s, and has never been invoked before, and from this narrow perspective, at least from my perspective as someone who is profoundly suspicious of US intelligence and law enforcement agencies, this is a welcome change.

In fact, it should have happened years ago.