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Devin Nunes

House intel chairman dishonored his post: Ross Baker

Nunes acted as executive branch front man, not an independent congressional leader.

Ross K. Baker

Devin Nunes, R-Calif., on Capitol Hill on March 23, 2017.

There is a term you hear a great deal on Capitol Hill: it is "regular order." It's the legislative branch's version of due process. It implies that there is a proper way to conduct business, and if you depart from it you'd better have a good reason. It has special meaning for the role of Congressional committees and their central role on the lawmaking process. Among Congressional committees the two intelligence committees were established with a unique charge: that they be bipartisan to the greatest extent possible. It is in this light that the actions of House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., are both incomprehensible and inexcusable, despite his belated explanations.

Nunes announced in the White House driveway on Wednesday that he had briefed President Trump on an unsourced report that members of the Trump team had been picked up in conversations with individuals who were targets of surveillance by U.S. intelligence. The Trump affiliates were apparently not themselves the object of the operation. Rather they were "incidental" to the conversations. In spite of the flimsiness of this information, it allowed Trump to claim vindication for his unproven charges of having been wiretapped by former President Obama. In providing this briefing without apprising the Intelligence Committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, or other members of the committee, Nunes violated both regular order and the spirit of the principle of separation of powers which, at the least, means not being a front man for the executive branch.

Had Nunes honored the responsibilities that come with wielding the gavel of one of the most important Congressional committees he would have at least informed Rep. Schiff, not to get his assent to the briefing but only to apprise him of the information that he had received and what he planned to do with it.

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Members and staff of both the House and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence have unique access to the facilities of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and other repositories of secret information. Staff and members spend a great deal of this time "off campus" at both the McLean, Va. headquarters of the CIA and at Fort Meade, Md., home of the NSA. Most hearings of these committees are held in what is known as "executive" session from which members of the public are barred, although they do hold open hearings when they feel that there is important information that needs to be brought to the attention of the public and the media. And in an era in which all other committees of Congress are contaminated by polarization, the two Intelligence committees have, for the most part, managed to fulfill their original bipartisan charter. Perhaps that is why Sen. John McCain, an ex officio member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, referred to Nunes's actions as "bizarre."

It is the responsibility of all congressional committees to exercise oversight on the activities of the executive branch of government not buddy up to it and provide it with political cover as Nunes did. Moreover, he cited unnamed sources for his statements, the very behavior that has been so roundly condemned by the White House.

However unconventional our new president chooses to be, the committees of Congress do not have a warrant to flout their Constitutional responsibilities to police the Constitutional lines of checks and balances and separation of power. To be a dupe and a puppet of a president dishonors the oath of the humblest member of the House. For a chairman to so abase himself casts himself and his committee into disrepute.

Ross K. Baker is a distinguished professor of political science at Rutgers University and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

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