WASHINGTON _ The Russian scheme to spy on and meddle in the 2016 election, and President Trump's efforts to twist it to suggest that Barack Obama ordered surveillance on him, has suddenly taken over the landscape of American politics.
The House Intelligence Committee investigation into the matter has been thoroughly compromised by Chairman Devin Nunes' secret White House viewing of evidence supposedly supporting Trump's allegation.
Democrats are demanding that Nunes recuse himself, or that the House committee and a similar Senate inquiry be complemented or replaced by an independent commission. Key Republicans, including Sen. John McCain of Arizona, have joined the outcry.
The New York Times has reported that two National Security Council officials were involved in Nunes' viewing of the questionable material at a secure room on White House grounds. And further intelligence on the scope of Russian hacking into American political organizations has deepened the plot of Trump's own suspected entanglement.
A timeline laid out by CNN and other news agencies suggests that Nunes' White House visit was orchestrated by Trump or his political operatives. Nunes has said he informed Trump of the intelligence purporting to confirm his charge that Obama ordered surveillance on him. The fact that Nunes acted alone, without informing fellow Republicans on the committee, let alone the Democrats, has raised the level of suspicion about his motivation.
The timeline noted that when a reporter asked the president directly whether he had been "vindicated" by Nunes' account, Trump seemed to accept the notion and expressed his thanks for the disclosure. He also offered without details that further confirmation would soon be coming.
It's puzzling why Nunes felt he had to go personally to the president with his information, when the White House officials who gave him access to the secure room and the material could have given it directly to Trump. It all smacked of a clumsy attempt to launder the transaction through the committee without leaving administration fingerprints.
At any rate, this whole cloak-and-dagger atmosphere has only compounded the growing public and press impression that the behavior of Trump and congressional allies like Nunes has brought a heavy dose of amateurism to the presidency.
Also surprising has been Trump's turnaround decision to resume discussions on killing Obamacare, after his failure to persuade enough House Republicans to do so despite their clear and broad majority in the chamber. After first saying he was walking away from the defeat, Trump indicated he would try again, if necessary courting House Democrats, and at the same time fiercely castigating the 30 or more members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus who in lockstep withheld support from their party's repeal-and-replace bill.
On Thursday morning the president warned on Twitter that the caucus needed to "get on the team, & fast," or else Trump loyalists would "fight them, & Dems, in 2018." He followed up hours later by specifically targeting Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows and members Jim Jordan and Raul Labrador.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, also smarting from the Freedom Caucus' rejection of the health care bill he was charged with shepherding through the House, warned on CBS News that Trump "will just go and work with Democrats to try and change Obamacare."
The speaker took note of the fact that the new president is not an ideological Republican, but rather "a business guy who wants to get things done ... with the Republican Congress." But if the Freedom Caucus "allows the perfect to be the enemy of the good," Ryan said, "I worry we'll push the president into working with Democrats."
Any deal with the opposite party, however, probably would retain the heart of Obamacare, including coverage for the 24 million Americans who are estimated to lose it under the Republican bill.
So the question remains: Why would either Trump or Ryan want to take a second crack at the whole health care fight and invite another rejection in their own party ranks? Wouldn't it have been better to move on to some other more attainable issue such an infrastructure reform? Courting Democratic votes probably would not have been required to score a first legislative victory.
When will Trump and what used to be called the Grand Old Party start getting its act together?
