Politico notes a sudden surge of interest in joining the the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence:
Dozens of Republican and Democratic lawmakers are clamoring to join the House Intelligence Committee next year — for a chance to be part of a panel at the vanguard of the partisan brawl over Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The interest has veterans of the committee worried that a new class of lawmakers will reinforce the partisan impulses that drove the committee toward dysfunction the past two years. The politicization of the once sober, above-the-fray panel has undermined what some lawmakers and national security officials say has been a decades-long partnership with the intelligence community. …
Republican and Democratic leaders have been compiling lists of dozens of members — one Republican lawmaker recently suggested upward of 70 on the GOP side — who want to join the committee. The demand for spots comes amid the ongoing partisan fight over the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and whether any of President Donald Trump’s associates participated in it.
As Politico points out, partisan lawmakers are out in force to join what used to be a non-partisan, quiet committee. No doubt, some of this is the new profile members on the committee suddenly had because of Rep. Nunes’ incompetent leadership technique, by which I mean his frantic and very public attempt to use the committee to protect his Party leader, rather than monitor the President – the one and same man, in case you were wondering. Partisans, if they’re smart – in some cases, an undue assumption – must be uneasily aware that their continued presence in this ego-inflating chamber is often dependent on the independent voters in their districts or States, and if the Intel Committee is going to suddenly acquire profile, it may also acquire prestige.
But there may also be an interior reason to seek a position on the committee, and that would happen to be all about brown-nosing for the Republicans, because if they can gain the favor of President Trump, then they can move up in the Republican hierarchy. Of course, just being a member isn’t enough – one will have to find ways to obstruct the monitoring, leak strategic information, that sort of thing. The creative Republican committee member will find ways to get his Leader’s attention.
All in the tradition of the previously noted incompetent Representative Nunes.
On Lawfare Molly Reynolds gives a short history of the committee.
