The continuing fallout from US President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated wiretapping allegation cost him another ally on Thursday, as the embattled Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee announced he would step aside from his panel’s investigation into Russia’s efforts to disrupt last year’s election.
The announcement from Representative Devin Nunes came shortly before the House Committee on Ethics said he was under investigation because of public reports that he “may have made unauthorized disclosures of classified information.”
Nunes’ recusal from the Russia inquiry was a blow to Trump, who in less than three months in office has seen the imbroglio over Russia’s disruption campaign exact political damage on some of his closest advisers and most vigorous supporters.
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The furor over the contacts that some of the president’s aides had with Russian officials has already led to the firing of retired general Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser, and the recusal of US Attorney General Jeff Sessions from overseeing the FBI’s inquiry into the Russian efforts.
Now Trump faces the potential revival of the inquiry.
The investigation had descended into a partisan sideshow in the two weeks since Nunes told reporters that Trump associates had been swept up in surveillance of foreign officials by US spy agencies during the transition, citing intelligence reports that were classified.
He then rushed to the White House to brief Trump, prompting Democrats to argue that Nunes had proved himself too close to the president to run an independent investigation.
The criticism intensified last week when the New York Times revealed that the classified information about incidental surveillance cited by Nunes came from White House officials.
White House officials had been seeking evidence to bolster a claim that Trump made on March 4 on Twitter that then-US president Barack Obama’s administration had wiretapped Trump Tower during the presidential campaign.
Numerous current and former US officials — including FBI Director James Comey — have debunked the claim.
Yet Nunes resisted demands to step aside until Thursday, when he found himself under investigation by the ethics committee.
Nunes said in a statement that the ethics investigation was “entirely false and politically motivated” and that he would remain as the intelligence committee’s chairman.
However, it was in the intelligence committee’s best interests for him to temporarily step aside from the Russian investigation, Nunes said in the statement, which was issued just 26 minutes before the ethics committee announced its inquiry.
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