How effective a witness can he be?

If he spills the beans on Pence and Trump, for instance, without significant corroborating evidence, his testimony would certainly be impugned by the accused parties as dubious...and they'd have a point.

All the more reason not to take the immunity deal. I'm sure the feds have Flynn dead to rights. He's going down, regardless. I can't see how a lying liar's testimony could form the pivot point for dragging Trumpco down with him....though I can't wait to hear it, for jubilation purposes alone.

In other words, does Nunes' (and Ryan's) obstruction of the House committee's investigation impact in any way the Senate investigation?

Why 2 different investigations in the 2 bodies of Congress?

What rules apply as to chairmanship of such committees? Are there any, or is this simply a partisan free-for-all?

It seems antithetical to the pursuit of truth and justice for partisan politics to prevail in the instance of a constitutional crisis. I haven't seen or read anything on DU that specifically addresses these questions...and I know there's a lot of really smart DU'ers who can readily answer them.

Thanks in advance.

The surveillance being discussed was performed during the transition period.

Conversations among Trump team members were likely intercepted. Rep. Nunes would likely have been one of them.

Theoretically, today it was leaked to Nunes that, not only were the Trump transition team all caught red-handed via this surveillance, but that the surveillance was ongoing, and therefore the Trump Team cover-up is also currently being documented by the FBI et al.

He freaked, and ran to Trump.

My question is, if Nunes is himself a target of the FBI investigation of Trump Team collusion with Russia, wouldn't he be forced by the rules to recuse himself? Is there a mechanism whereby Congress may remove a member from a committee in which he has a vested interest to sabotage?

We need this man removed from his Chair. I wonder if the House rules allow for replacement; if they do not, the balance shifts to the Democrats within the committee.

A special prosecutor investigation would likely linger for months. God knows the damage a Felon in Chief could rain on America and the world during that period. If a true, bipartisan Congressional investigation is achievable (and with as many rats on the ship as it appears the Republicans have infested us with, that's a big if), it would be preferable to the alternative.

Last night we ate dinner at a local Indian restaurant. A Dutchman and his wife sat at the next table. Small talk ensued and, once it was determined that we were Americans, he asked us the question seemingly on every European's mind these days: "What do you think of Trump?" When my family, in unison, said that he was a blight on everything the USA stands for, he applauded and added that everyone he knows wonders how we blundered into a Trump presidency.

In a nutshell, I explained that, unlike the Dutch, some Americans wish to interpret our Constitution as enabling individual freedoms and liberties, but not societal freedoms and liberties. Whereas the Dutch may have realized long ago that "united we stand, divided we fall", Americans are resistant to that ideal. It's a pity, because the deprivation of a safety net (due to cost) leads to far higher costs to society. The Dutchman pointed out that no one in Holland needs to fear the "bottom falling out", because programs exist to guarantee health care, housing, food, and basically all the essentials of life.

Why can't we look out for each other in the USA? Why do the so-called "patriots" insist that America is an "every man and woman for themselves" society when a compassionate government leads to happiness, pride and inclusion?

Therefore Feinstein's and Grassley's ashen faces and zombified expressions yesterday. The media and the Congress will now investigate further and dot the I's and cross T's as the tracks are torn out from under the Trump Train.

What we're staring at is a Constitutional crisis. The Founding Fathers anticipated a lot, but a two-party system that, worst case scenario, would circumvent checks and balances and allow a President with less than a majority to rule as a dictator was not one of them, particularly when that candidate commiserated with a hostile foreign nation to ascend to the presidency.

Treason is narrowly defined and impeachment is dicey when the head of the Senate and possibly handfuls of Republicans are potentially implicated in the scandal as well.

We simply do not have a legal process in place to address this incursion on American government and politics. Who creates the rules that will need to be promulgated to adequately investigate and punish the wrong-doers?

That's the worry that I see in the Senators' faces: they know what happened, they know their duty is to prosecute, but there isn't an existing institution within which this may be adjudicated.

I've been like the rest of you the past several months. Waiting for the next shoe to drop. Absorbed and inflamed with each morsel of news of collusion with the Russians, of imaginary wiretaps, of the decimation of our democratic principles, of the stench of cover-up.

Throughout this, I've had the feeling that, with enough effort, the truth would come out, and good Americans, less informed than we are, would eventually catch on to the fact that their vote had been a vote for a Russian plant, that Congress was acting on behalf of its party allegiance and not on the behalf of its citizenry, and that every single one of them needed to be outed and punished to the maximum extent possible by law.

For some reason, I no longer feel this way. My zeal has given way to a sense of hopelessness.

Perhaps the "fact" that 91% of Republicans still support Trump had something to do with it. Perhaps knowing that the next move up FOX's sleeve would be to assert that the IC was in fact the culprit, assigning partisan motives to them that don't exist, simply to confuse fact with fiction, just as Trump has been doing since initiating his campaign. I'm afraid that the media doesn't have the stomach to follow up on Rachel's daily discoveries. Let's face it, the evidence is piling up, it's damning, but there is no outrage, no sustained coverage, no Breaking News moment.

Yes, I'm losing hope. I yelled at my wife last night because she told me her mother, a Trump voter, had said that what is happening in Washington today is the same as always, that this wasn't anything unusual at all. Something about the willful ignorance of that statement from an otherwise well-informed person was enough to throw me over the edge. The Trump voter still doesn't see what we see, and by the time they do, we'll ALL be stewing in our miserable juices.

Can anyone - ANYONE - help to persuade me otherwise? Please?

In the midst of a witch hunt of a spurious nature.

Jeff Sessions lies under oath before Congress. I remember 1999. I remember Tom Delay.

"This nation sits at a crossroads. One direction points to the higher road of the rule of law. Sometimes hard, sometimes unpleasant, this path relies on truth, justice and the rigorous application of the principle that no man is above the law. Now, the other road is the path of least resistance. This is where we start making exceptions to our laws based on poll numbers and spin control. This is when we pitch the law completely overboard when the mood fits us, when we ignore the facts in order to cover up the truth.
No man is above the law, and no man is below the law. That's the principle that we all hold dear in this country."

I remember James Sensenbrenner.

"What is on trial here is the truth and the rule of law. Our failure to bring President Clinton to account for his lying under oath and preventing the courts from administering equal justice under law, will cause a cancer to be present in our society for generations. I want those parents who ask me the questions, to be able to tell their children that even if you are president of the United States, if you lie when sworn "to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," you will face the consequences of that action, even when you don't accept the responsibility for them."

I remember Bill Frist.

"I will have no part in the creation of a constitutional double-standard to benefit the President. He is not above the law. If an ordinary citizen committed these crimes, he would go to jail."

Accordingly, Congressional Republicans should apply these brilliant ethical standards to their own. Right? Ha.

Why do Republicans always get to play Warden, even when their record proves them to be the Prisoner? How can one group hold a monopoly on moral ambivalence? The hypocrisy is so stark, it disturbs the soul.

Was this the report that Mark Levin and Breitbart News later bastardized and distorted that led to this tweet:

'How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!'?

I think that's how these folks operate. They take an actual fact-based, well-researched story and re-write it to suit their purposes. They then pass the new and altered version to their uninformed masses, who take it at face value because it corresponds to the overall narrative they've heard on FOX and Rush and the rest of the Propaganda Perverts.

Trump is stupid, disinterested, illiterate and woefully uneducated. He's easy prey to the brainwashers that surround him. If he had read the NY Times story - and that is highly doubtful - it wouldn't surprise me in the least that his takeaway would have been that Obama had wiretapped him. Add the sinister involvement of Bannon, and that conclusion seems inevitable under the circumstances.

In case anyone wondered where in the hell did he come up with THAT...and why no one is willing to talk about it further. Alternative facts don't hold up well under scrutiny.

It's not like he's a real journalist or anything. He's an entertainer. The same label all of the RWNJ's ascribe to themselves when they need to wiggle off the hook.

The entire real world knows that this was nothing more than a trumped up allegation meant to stir up and confuse the masses. It's overt propaganda, and yet the mouthpiece has been oddly overlooked over the weekend.

Mark Levin: where in the HELL did you come up with the Obama wiretap story?

And there is demonstrable evidence that votes were manipulated that may have swung the election to tRump...

...is there any chance that the election be overturned, and the rightful President of the United States be sworn in?

Constitutionally, I know there's nothing that would permit it...but this is certainly an extra-Constitutional matter that would require interpretation and extrapolation by the Supreme Court.

I know it's wishful thinking...but I pray for a day that I wake up and Madam President restores honor and integrity to the United States.