Devin Nunes, the California Republican who helped undermine Trump’s impeachment process and Russia’s inquiry into spreading unfounded conspiracies, was rewarded for his actions by the president on Monday with the country’s highest civilian tribute.
President Donald Trump announced that he would hand over the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the member of Congress, thanking him for his work exposing what Trump called a “farce of Russia”.
“Congressman Devin Nunes is a public servant of unparalleled talent, unassailable integrity and unwavering determination, “Trump said in a statement.” He discovered the biggest scandal in American history. “
A White House spokesman told the media on Monday afternoon that the ceremony was held – apparently privately – earlier in the day.
Trump is also expected to soon award the award to Jim Jordan, the Ohio Congressman who was also a close ally and accused of turning a blind eye to sexual attacks at Ohio State University when he trained wrestling – an accusation He denies.
The decision to honor Nunes and Jordan with an award previously granted to figures such as Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Neil Armstrong and Sandra Day O’Connor is part of a pattern of Trump’s behavior rewarding allies with presidential honors or pardons during their last few weeks in office.
Nunes, who represents California’s 22nd district since 2003, used his administration of the House Intelligence Committee until 2019 to inject party intrigue into investigating Russia’s ties to the 2016 Trump campaign, effectively halting that committee’s investigation. Senate Republicans even criticized their colleagues in the House for a “very partisan” investigation.
In 2018, Nunes was also an important figure in an impulse to release a secret memo he had written detailing how top Justice Department officials approved the surveillance of Trump’s campaign foreign policy advisor, Carter Page, without fully explaining the a judge at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that his intelligence was partially based on the dossier Christoper Steele.
For weeks, Nunes led a campaign in the right-wing media provoking the content of the memo, but failed to match the exaggeration.
Democrats said Nunes’s decision to release his memo was only intended to discredit the DOJ and the FBI, as well as undermine the public’s faith in the investigation of former special attorney Robert Mueller.
Trump later called Nunes “a true American patriot as we rarely see in our modern world.”
In his announcement on Monday, Trump praised Nunes for helping to “thwart a conspiracy to overthrow an incumbent United States president.”
During Trump’s impeachment because of his 2019 negotiations with Ukraine, Nunes worked to feed the conservative media machine by bombarding witnesses with seemingly bizarre questions drawn from conspiracy theories that were then inserted into viral videos casting doubt on the process .
The impeachment investigation also concluded that Nunes had communicated extensively with Rudy Giuliani and his associate Lev Parnas before the lawsuit.
“It is deeply worrying that, at a time when the President of the United States was using the power of his office to dig up the dirt of a political rival,” said President of the Democratic House Intelligence Service, Adam Schiff, in December, ” there may be evidence that members of Congress were complicit in this activity. “
At one point, Nunes seemed more concerned with the leak of Trump’s conversation with the Ukrainian leader than with the content of the call that showed Trump pressuring his counterpart to dig up dirt on Joe Biden.
Nunes has also made headlines in recent years for his failed attempts to prosecute two parody accounts on Twitter – one pretending to be his mother, the other impersonating a cow – who were making fun of him.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is usually awarded to individuals – living or dead – who have made “particularly meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace or to cultural activities or other significant public or private initiatives.”
Presidents award the medal at their discretion, routinely honoring key cultural or historical figures.
During his presidency, Trump awarded the medal to Republican donor Miriam Adelson and right-wing radio announcer Rush Limbaugh, among others. He also gave it posthumously to Elvis Presley, Babe Ruth and Antonin Scalia.