USEFUL IDIOTS:

In reflecting more on this, I think Nunes may have just blown up the core Trump defense to the "Russia investigation" -- that it was all fruit of the poisonous Steel tree. Not true. It was already underway. https://t.co/gUvGgSUyY1

-- David French (@DavidAFrench) February 2, 2018

At the end of last year, the New York Times published a furiously contested scoop claiming that the investigation actually began not because of the Steele dossier but rather because George Papadopoulos had popped up on the FBI's radar. Here's the Times:

During a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, made a startling revelation to Australia's top diplomat in Britain: Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton. . . . 

 . . . Exactly how much Mr. Papadopoulos said that night at the Kensington Wine Rooms with the Australian, Alexander Downer, is unclear. But two months later, when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, Australian officials passed the information about Mr. Papadopoulos to their American counterparts, according to four current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians' role.

The Times claimed that this information "led the F.B.I. to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's associates conspired."

Well, if the newly released Nunes memo is correct, House Republicans and the Trump administration just confirmed the Times'scoop. In the process, they blew up their core argument against the investigation. The investigation isn't the fruit of the poisonous dossier (though the dossier did play a role); it existed before the dossier.

When the House Intelligence Committee finally did its dramatic reveal of the so-called Nunes memo, several things were immediately clear -- and all were bad for committee chairman Devin Nunes and President Trump , the man his efforts were ultimately intended to benefit.   [...]

[T]o the extent the document contained any surprises, it was the degree to which it actually undermined the attacks that the president and his allies had been advancing.

One such assault has claimed that the "Steele dossier," opposition research compiled by the private firm Fusion GPS at the behest of the Clinton campaign, served as the basis for the investigation into the Trump campaign and surveillance of a former campaign aide. However, the Nunes memo says information about Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos -- not the Steele dossier -- "triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 . . . ." Whether that was intended or not, it undercuts the claim that the Russia investigation is based upon the dossier.

Most importantly, the Nunes memo fails utterly at Trump's reported purpose in urging its release: to lay the groundwork for firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees Mueller's investigation and is key to protecting that investigation going forward.

The memo says almost nothing about Rosenstein. It notes that he was one of five Justice and FBI officials to sign applications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for warrants to wiretap former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. 

One of the others who took the same action was Dana Boente, whom Trump appointed acting attorney general after he fired Obama-administration holdover Sally Yates. Boente, incidentally, was recently chosen to become general counsel of the FBI -- a decision that hardly seems consistent with a sincere belief that the Justice Department under his watch abused the surveillance process. The memo's only other reference to Rosenstein is that a department attorney who met with Fusion GPS officials also did some work with Rosenstein -- a factoid with little if any relevance. 

Perhaps the most important substantive detail to emerge from the memo put together by House Intel Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) is the admission that it was George Papadopoulos--not the Steele dossier--which triggered the investigation. This, however, was an admission against interest.

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