Congress Intelligence

Thoughts on the Nunes Memo: We Need to Talk About Devin

Quinta Jurecic, Shannon Togawa Mercer, Benjamin Wittes
Friday, February 2, 2018, 9:43 PM

After more than two weeks of mounting anticipation and hype, the memo on alleged surveillance abuses prepared by Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has finally been #released. So does the memo document surveillance abuses “worse than Watergate,” as Rep. Steve King tweeted last month?

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After more than two weeks of mounting anticipation and hype, the memo on alleged surveillance abuses prepared by Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has finally been #released. So does the memo document surveillance abuses “worse than Watergate,” as Rep. Steve King tweeted last month? Or is it nothing more than disingenuous spin, as House intelligence committee Vice Chairman Adam Schiff argues—“a burn-the-house down strategy to protect the president”?

Former FBI director James Comey came down strongly on Schiff’s side Friday afternoon—suggesting as well that the memo didn’t pack much of a punch:


Quinta Jurecic is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a senior editor at Lawfare. She previously served as Lawfare's managing editor and as an editorial writer for the Washington Post.
Shannon Togawa Mercer is a senior associate at WilmerHale. Her practice focuses on complex global data protection, privacy, and cybersecurity matters. Ms. Togawa Mercer has extensive experience counseling clients on cross border data protection and privacy compliance as well as cyber incident response. She has practiced in London and Washington D.C. and previously served as Managing Editor and Senior Editor at Lawfare. Ms. Togawa Mercer also served as National Security and Law associate at the Hoover Institution.
Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books.

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