Devin Nunes
In The Know
Born to immigrants from Portugal, Devin Nunes was raised in Tulare County, California. His family has a working farm there they have maintained for three generations. Nunes attended the College of the Sequoias and Cal Poly, graduating with a degree in agricultural business.
Nunes was appointed Director for the US Department of Agriculture's Rural Development section in 2001 by President George W. Bush. Following this appointment, Nunes ran for the republication seat in California's 21st congressional district. He has held that position since.
Though Nunes studied agriculture and is a representative of California, he believes global warming is a farce. He claimed that the California drought was nonexistent and that the state had plenty of water, despite obvious scientific evidence to the contrary.
Nunes opposed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an agreement that the US and other world powers reached with Iran to limit their nuclear arsenal in exchange for sanctions relief.
Notably, as head of the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes also oversaw the GOP-lead investigation into the 2012 Benghazi attack that largely targeted Hillary Clinton.
Nunes supported Trump's muslim ban, despite the fact that he is a direct descendent of immigrants himself. He called the ban "common-sense security."
2018 Headlines
In 2015, Nunes was made the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, a committee of the House of Representatives charged with oversight of the intelligence community and the military intelligence program. As you may know, the House Intelligence Committee has been tasked with leading the investigation into the Trump campaign and Russian ties. Despite this role, Nunes, who was a member of Trump's presidential transition team, held a press conference in March, 2017 during which he announced that information on members of Trump's team had been "incidentally collected" by the FBI. He claimed therefore that the information obtained was done so legally but was in no way related to Russia. As a result of his statements and the fact that he had not run them by the rest of House Intelligence, Nunes briefly recused himself from the Russia investigation. He was cleared by the US House Committee on Ethics of any disclosure of classified information in December, 2017, which brings us to the memo.
Nunes released a three and a half page memo intending to discredit the Mueller investigation and the FBI's probe into the Trump investigation. The FBI strongly objected to the declassification of the memo, fearing it would interfere with the ongoing investigation. Despite this, Trump was confident that the memo would paint him as the victim of a conspiracy between Robert Mueller, the FBI, and democrats to take him down. Instead, it had the opposite effect, proving that the FBI had valid reason to begin investigations into Carter Page, George Papdopoulos, and Russian interference.
Fun Fact
Devin Nunes has the most punchable face in congress.