House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes threatened to hold Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in contempt and even impeach him if Nunes was not allowed to view the original documents that authorized the FBI's investigation of foreign interference in the 2016 election, but Nunes isn't reading them.
Rosenstein eventually allowed Nunes and Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy to view the documents at the Department of Justice, but sources who spoke to CNN say Nunes didn't even look at them.
When the pair arrived at the Justice Department to review the electronic communication, officials were caught off-guard by his next move. Nunes -- sitting with a copy of the document in an unopened folder directly in front of him -- opted not to read it, according to four sources with knowledge of the situation.
Gowdy, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, reviewed a copy and since then nearly a dozen other lawmakers have gone to the Justice Department to read the document, sources say.
The documents in question contain sources, both foreign and domestic, that served as the basis for the investigation and they were redacted to protect those sources.
Now, one may get the impression that Nunes didn't read the original, uncensored documents because they would confirm that he's wrong about everything. The Intelligence Committee chairman wouldn't want to know the truth, would he?
It was very clever of Rosenstein to initially invite Nunes and Gowdy to view the documents together because if Nunes ran his mouth about it there would be someone else who knows the truth; someone who chairs the Oversight Committee.
Trey Gowdy is a lot of things, but I don't think he would throw the FBI under the bus like Nunes has.