McCain, Graham Give Anti-Trump Media ‘Bipartisan’ Cover

The news media have begun to cast Democratic attacks on House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) as bipartisan concerns the congressman is unfit to lead an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

CNN’s John Berman delivered the breaking news to viewers on Tuesday.

“You cannot be both a maverick and represent the Republican Party. It can’t be both.”

“We’re starting to hear from some Republicans now,” he said, adding, “mainly in the Senate.”

“Mainly in the Senate” turns out to be exclusively in the Senate. And “some Republicans” turns out to be the same two the media always go to in order to present the veneer of bipartisan outrage at President Donald Trump or some purported Republican misstep — Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

The two longtime friends relish their shared role as in-house GOP antagonists. The Nunes controversy is only the latest. McCain on “CBS This Morning” Tuesday joined the chorus of Democratic critics piling on Nunes for sharing with the White House information he learned that the names of Trump associates during the transition period after the election were not properly disguised in intelligence reports on surveillance of foreign targets.

“I think there needs to be a lot of explaining to do,” McCain said. “I’ve been around for quite a while and I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

He added, “It is an issue of most importance and something’s got to change. Otherwise the whole effort in the House of Representatives will lose credibility.”

Graham, meanwhile, said on “The TODAY Show” that it was a “little bizarre” for Nunes to brief the administration about his findings.

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“The problem he created is he has gone off on a lark by himself, sort of [an] Inspector Clouseau investigation here, trying to find some unmasking information about collection incidental with the Trump campaign and some foreign agent outside of Russia,” he said.

“I think the only way this can be repaired is if he tells his colleagues on the House Intel Committee who he met with and what he saw and let them look at the same information,” Graham continued.

Americans routinely get caught up in such snooping, either because they have spoken with a foreigner under surveillance or their names gets mentioned in conversations or emails. Under law, though, government officials are supposed to protect the privacy of Americans by using terms such as “U.S. Person 1” in reports. Nunes has said some names of associates close to Trump appear to have been “unmasked” and that he does not know of a valid reason.

This occurs against the backdrop of apparently illegal handling of classified reports on surveillance of Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, who spoke with incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn during the transition. Someone with access to those documents leaked the information to reporters in apparent violation of the law.

With respect to the information he discussed with the White House, Nunes has said the surveillance had nothing to do with Russia or Russian interference in the election campaign. No matter. Democrats immediately pounced and have been escalating their comments ever since that Nunes cannot be trusted to be independent. The committee’s ranking minority member, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), has called on him to recuse himself.

Partisan squabbling in Congress is hardly news, however. Such criticism has more weight when it comes from members of the congressman’s own party. Enter McCain and Graham.

But Dan Gainor, vice president of business and culture at the Media Research Center, said offering up McCain and Graham as evidence of broad bipartisan concern presents a false narrative. He noted that media long have celebrated McCain as a “maverick” willing to buck his party.

“You cannot be both a maverick and represent the Republican Party,” he said. “It can’t be both.”

So far, there is no evidence that Nunes has lost the confidence of his Republican colleagues in the House. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) responded with a succinct “no,” when asked Tuesday at a news conference if he thought Nunes should recuse himself.

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Gainor said press amplification of comments by McCain and Graham are “part and parcel of their strategy of attacking Trump.” He added that mainstream news reporters rarely quote dissident Democrats to undermine the dominant position of that party.

“If you were always doing that, it would be fine,” he said. “But they are always only doing that one way.”

Gainor said he suspects the media coverage of Nunes is colored by the fact that he presented information that suggests Trump’s claim of surveillance by the Obama administration has a kernel of truth. A Media Research Center study indicated that ABC, NBC ,and CBS collectively demanded evidence for Trump’s claim 123 times.

“Finally, Nunes presents evidence and the reaction is, ‘He’s got to go,'” Gainor said.