House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) temporarily recused himself Thursday from all matters related to the committee’s ongoing probe into Russian interference in the presidential election, as House investigators look into ethics charges against him.

The House Ethics Committee released a statement Thursday saying it had “determined to investigate” allegations that “Nunes may have made unauthorized disclosures of classified information, in violation of House Rules, law, regulations, or other standards of conduct.”

Nunes denied the charges as “entirely false and politically motivated,” blaming “several leftwing activist groups” for filing complaints with the Office of Congressional Ethics. Nunes said his recusal — which applies only to the committee’s Russia investigation — would be in effect while the House Ethics Committee looks into the matter. He noted that he has asked to speak with that committee “at the earliest possible opportunity in order to expedite the dismissal of these false claims.”

In the meantime, Nunes said, Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Tex.) will take the lead on the Russia investigation, with assistance from Reps. Thomas J. Rooney (R-Fla.) and Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), who also sits on the Ethics Committee.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said Thursday that he does not think Nunes did anything wrong, but “fully support[s] his decision.”

“Chairman Nunes wants to make sure he is not a distraction to this very important investigation,” Ryan added.

Nunes came under fire in recent weeks for going to the White House grounds to meet with a secret source and view documents he said suggest that the identities of President Trump and his transition team members may have been improperly revealed in reports on surveillance of foreign targets. Nunes, who served on Trump’s transition team, did not alert the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee before making the trip, or before briefing the press and Trump the next day about what he saw.

[The Nunes-White House question, assessed minute-by-minute]

Democrats have accused Nunes of coordinating with the White House about those reports, and suggested that in talking about them publicly, he might have released classified information. On March 28, the heads of advocacy groups Democracy 21 and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics asking investigators to launch an inquiry into whether Nunes disclosed classified information. It is not clear whether that letter inspired the inquiry.

Democrats have also accused Nunes of coordinating with the White House about the witnesses appearing before the committee, after he canceled a planned open hearing with former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., former CIA director John Brennan, and former acting attorney general Sally Yates. The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration had sought to prevent Yates from testifying.

[Trump administration sought to block Sally Yates from testifying to Congress on Russia]

Elsewhere in Congress, GOP members applauded Nunes for stepping away from the probe and heralded the decision as one that could help heal divisions in the House Intelligence Committee and put their investigation back on course.

“The biggest mistake was not consulting with the Democrats,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said. “You have to do that if you’re going to be successful around here, especially on national security issues.”

“There’s still a lot of broken trust. . . . It’s too big of an issue not to have everybody work in a professional, serious way to be able to resolve this,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “At the end of it, everybody’s got to trust the outcome.”

Stewarding the House’s investigation now falls to Conaway, 68, who also serves as chairman of the House Agriculture Committee and has a reputation on Capitol Hill as a quiet and diligent lawmaker. Conaway pledged to conduct the investigation “in a very strong, workmanlike manner, expeditiously,” and he said he would be “working with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to get it done.”

But Conaway is also a Trump supporter, and on various occasions he has sought to sow doubt about the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia meddled in the 2016 elections with the intention of helping Trump’s candidacy.

A major part of both the House and Senate intelligence committees’ probes involves potential links between members of Trump’s campaign and transition teams and Russian officials. But when FBI Director James B. Comey and National Security Agency Director Michael S. Rogers endorsed that finding before the House Intelligence Committee in an open hearing last month, Conaway questioned the intelligence community’s rationale and logic behind that conclusion.

“The logic is that because [Putin] really didn’t like presidential candidate [Hillary] Clinton that he automatically liked Trump?” Conaway asked Comey. “That might work on Saturday afternoon when my wife’s [Texas Tech] Red Raiders are playing the Texas Longhorns,” he noted, but he suggested that such logic would not apply “all the rest of the time.”

“It’s based on more than that,” Comey retorted, defending the logic by continuing the football metaphor. “Whoever the Red Raiders are playing, you want the Red Raiders to win; by definition you want their opponents to lose.”

In the past, Conaway has also said that if Congress wants to probe foreign interference in the 2016 election, it should also look into how “Harry Reid and the Democrats brought in Mexican soap opera stars, singers and entertainers who had immense influence” getting out the vote in Las Vegas.

“Those are foreign actors, foreign people, influencing the vote in Nevada,” Conaway told the Dallas Morning News in January. Mexican entertainers should be as troubling as Russian cyberhacking and propaganda dissemination because “it’s foreign influence,” he argued, adding: “If we’re worried about foreign influence, let’s have the whole story.”

Helping Conaway is Gowdy, another Intelligence Committee member who has drawn accusations from Democrats of letting partisanship seep into investigations. That was particularly the case when Gowdy chaired a select committee looking into the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.

Gowdy also sits on the House Ethics Committee, which is now investigating Nunes over allegations he may have disclosed classified information against House rules.

The House Ethics Committee’s announcement that it would look into the matter comes just over two weeks after Nunes’s controversial visit to the White House grounds, and just 10 days after the Democracy 21 and CREW letter was sent to the Office of Congressional Ethics.

That is an uncommonly quick turnaround for the committee, which often waits until it receives a formal referral and report from the Office of Congressional Ethics before taking up an inquiry. The House Ethics Committee did not lay out a timeline during which it expected to complete an initial review.

In the meantime, Nunes pledged in his statement to “continue to fulfill all my other responsibilities as Committee Chairman” in matters unrelated to the Russia probe.

The ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), commended Nunes for stepping down. Nunes acted “in the best interests of the committee, and I respect that decision,” Schiff said.

He also said he welcomed Conaway’s leadership of the investigation.

“The important work of investigating the Russian involvement in our election never subsided, but we have a fresh opportunity to move forward in the unified and nonpartisan way that an investigation of this seriousness demands,” Schiff said.

In a statement, the House Ethics Committee cited its “institutional obligation” to investigate “unauthorized disclosures of classified information.”

Mike DeBonis contributed to this report.

Read more at PowerPost

By the end of this week, the Senate probably will get rid of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, ending a procedural tool that has been available to the minority party for about 250 years and helped define the Senate as a slower, more methodical chamber than the majority-rule House.

Republicans will pull the trigger to get Judge Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court over a Democratic filibuster. But they say this is just the inevitable, regrettable conclusion of a war Democrats started years ago.

Dem filibuster of exceptional Judge Gorsuch means no GOP nominee will B acceptable Can’t be 1 rule for Dems and 1 rule for GOP

— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) April 3, 2017

No surprise; Democrats argue the exact opposite: It’s Republicans’ obstruction over the past decade that led to this moment.

Don’t be fooled-the decision to destroy minority rights in the Senate is entirely Sen McConnell’s. We are at this point because of him alone

— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) April 4, 2017

Who’s right? The answer depends on your politics, which probably says more about how partisan the nation has become — and as a result, rules governing political institutions are eroding — than it does answer the question about who’s to blame for the filibuster.

But because both sides are pretty convinced that the other is to blame, let’s try to answer that question. Here’s a guide on how to best argue who’s to blame for getting rid of the filibuster.

If you think Democrats are to blame, say:

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Senate Democratic leaders. (Andrew Harnik/Associated Press)

Sens. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), left, and Trent Lott (R-Miss.) in 2005. (Getty Images)

Senate Judiciary Committee members Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman, greet Judge Neil Gorsuch, center, before his Supreme Court hearing in March. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

One of the Democrats’ most common explanations for why they’re filibustering Gorsuch has been rated by fact checkers here at The Washington Post as a misleading statement: that nominees must get 60 votes to be approved. It’s true that the past six justices have received 60 votes, but there’s no rule that they have to.

In filibustering Gorsuch, Democrats are putting him through a rare extra hurdle for Supreme Court confirmation votes, one that requires the Senate to find 60 senators to vote to end debate.

[Confirmations for the sitting Supreme Court justices were not nearly as partisan as Judge Gorsuch’s]

Two of the most controversial Supreme Court nominees in history — Clarence Thomas and Robert Bork — never had to clear such a hurdle.

For these reasons, Republicans say Democrats are forcing them to throw out the filibuster.

“We have no alternative,” Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), a senior Senate Republican, said Monday.

If you think Republicans are to blame, say:

1. You wanna talk filibusters. Let’s talk about the Obama years.

That’s when Senate Republicans, in the minority for six of President Barack Obama’s eight years in the White House, blocked at least a dozen* of Obama-nominated judges and even Cabinet appointments — including Chuck Hagel for defense secretary, the first filibuster of any nominee to lead the Defense Department.

Lower-court benches were left virtually empty as a result, said Democratic aides working in the Senate at that time.

Senate Republicans’ filibuster of three not particularly partisan District Court judges in 2013 was the last straw for then-Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who pulled the trigger other majority leaders had only contemplated pulling.

In an afternoon, Democrats in the Senate voted to lower the vote threshold for all of a president’s political and lower-court nominees, so that a simple majority (usually 51 votes) could get them through.

Then-Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) attends a news conference in 2013 with Senate Democrats after they got rid of the filibuster for most judicial nominees. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

*Correction: We originally incorrectly overstated how many of President Obama’s nominees Republicans filibustered during this period. At the time Reid changed the filibuster, Republicans maintained they had confirmed 99 percent of Obama’s judicial selections, and The Washington Post’s Fact Checker counted 12 Obama nominees who did not receive a final vote/had their nominations withdrawn as a result, compared to 14 during the Bush presidency. Democratic aides working in the Senate during this time maintain that dozens more of Obama’s were blocked by threats of filibusters or cloture motions filed to delay proceedings. 

2. It’s Republicans who are actually pulling the trigger on getting rid of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, not Democrats.

Therefore, the blame rests on Republicans. Case closed.

As Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) said in a recent interview with NPR’s Robert Siegel: “Nobody is forcing McConnell to go that route. But he is a very determined person, and he wants what he wants.”

3. Also, there’s a guy called Merrick Garland who never got a vote. 

Judge Merrick Garland speaks from the podium as President Barack Obama applauds, at the announcement of Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court in March 2016. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

• Democrats catch Republicans off guard by filibustering a Bush nominee.
• Republicans filibuster a dozen of Obama’s judicial nominees. (Democrats argue they unofficially blocked much more than that, but the definition of « blocked » is in the eye of the beholder.)
• Democrats decide to get rid of the filibuster for all non-Supreme Court nominees.
• Republicans hold a Supreme Court seat open for more than a year.
• Democrats are now leading a rare filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee.
• In turn, Republicans will probably get rid of that last shred of the filibuster for nominees.

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Activists claim the Syrian government launched an airstrike on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in the country’s northwestern Idlib province. Scores of civilians, including many women and children, were reportedly killed.

Video footage surfaced on social media of small, frantic children being hosed off by rescuers in the hopes of washing away whatever lethal chemical agent had hit them. Other gruesome reports showed corpses hastily wrapped in blankets, victims with foam coming out of their mouths and a chilling scene of lifeless boys, their torsos bare, eyes open and limbs contorted in shock.

The death toll was unclear at the time of writing, with aid agencies and monitoring groups putting the number anywhere from 58 up to 100 killed.

Supporters of the Syrian regime rejected any link to a chemical weapons strike. They claimed the reports were fabricated by terrorist groups in Idlib and suggested the fatalities were the result of an explosion at a supposed al-Qaeda chemical weapons factory. Russian authorities, whose warplanes are flying in support of the regime, said they had not conducted a strike in the area around the town. But the broader international reaction was vehement — and put the blame squarely on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

« Once again the Syrian regime will deny the evidence of its responsibility for this massacre, » French President François Hollande said in a statement.

« Bombing your own civilians with chemical weapons is unquestionably a war crime, and they must be held to account, » declared British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson.

The Turkish foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said the attack was a crime against humanity that could derail the fragile Syrian peace process.

The French and British ambassadors at the United Nations called for an emergency meeting of the Security Council, which will convene on Wednesday morning.

Such strikes are a regime tactic to further demoralize the flagging rebellion. « Assad calculates, reasonably, that military dynamics play in his favor. By using chemical weapons and other weapons, he is demonstrating the powerlessness of international actors, » said Emile Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, to The Washington Post.

But in Washington, the Trump administration initially chose to blame its predecessor, another sign the White House is far more comfortable operating as if it’s still running an election campaign rather than the world’s only superpower.

« Today’s chemical attack in Syria against innocent people, including women and children, is reprehensible and cannot be ignored by the civilized world, » said White House press secretary Sean Spicer. « These heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the past administration’s weakness and irresolution. »

Spicer, speaking at a press briefing, added: « President Obama said in 2012 he would establish a red line against the use of chemical weapons and then did nothing. The United States stands with our allies across the globe to condemn this intolerable act. »

It’s seemingly a bizarre line of attack for the Trump administration to choose. In 2013, the Obama administration contemplated a military response after a suspected regime chemical weapons attack on rebel-held districts in the suburbs of Damascus killed more than 1,000 people. The mounting international pressure at the time compelled Assad to agree to eliminate its chemical weapons program.

The fact that Obama chose to back off from confronting the Assad regime, which allegedly used chemical weapons numerous times in the years since, will forever haunt the former president’s legacy. Much of the Washington foreign policy establishment has excoriated him for it. But Trump in 2013 — then a private citizen with the same itchy Twitter finger — was opposed to American intervention in Syria.

What will we get for bombing Syria besides more debt and a possible long term conflict? Obama needs Congressional approval.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2013

AGAIN, TO OUR VERY FOOLISH LEADER, DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA – IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN FROM THAT FIGHT THE U.S. GETS NOTHING!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2013

President Obama, do not attack Syria. There is no upside and tremendous downside. Save your « powder » for another (and more important) day!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2013

The irony is that Trump’s position on the Syrian conflict isn’t that far removed from Obama’s — although it’s more conspicuous in its indifference to the plight of Syrian refugees. The previous administration called for Assad’s departure, but it did little to actually push for regime change, fearing that any deeper involvement in the Syrian conflict would risk the sort of blowback and chaos that rocked Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion. Trump, meanwhile, has insisted on multiple occasions that he is not interested in nation-building in the Middle East or dictating regime change. His lieutenants indicated as recently as last week that the White House does not prioritize removing Assad from power.

« No one — not even President Obama, as far as I could tell — was satisfied with the Obama administration’s approach to the conflict in Syria, » wrote Andrew Exum, a former Obama-era Pentagon official, in the Atlantic. « But if you assembled all of the Obama administration’s critics in one room, they would not agree on an obvious alternative. The problem is wicked enough to confound easy solutions, and each policy alternative had strategic and moral deficiencies. »

Instead of being weighed down by the strategic headache of Syria — what Spicer described as « weakness and irresolution » — you get the impression that Trump has decided to brush it all aside in favor of aggressive posturing and a steady escalation of the military campaign against the Islamic State. It’s the kind of brazenness that may have deep costs — as seen in the scores of Iraqi civilians likely killed by a recent American airstrike in the city of Mosul.

« This president would be wise to remember what his predecessor knew: War is a very imperfect instrument of policy, » wrote Exum.

Later on Tuesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson put out a more measured statement that singled out the « brutal, unabashed barbarism » of the Assad regime. It scolded Assad’s boosters, Russia and Iran, for not ensuring the regime’s « compliance » with a cease-fire they were supposed to guarantee and said they « bear great moral responsibility » for Syrian civilian deaths. This, as analysts noted, while scoring no political points at home, was more intelligent messaging in the face of a complex challenge. But for now, his boss seems content to ignore the complexity altogether.

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