Nunes Down, Gowdy Up

The entry of the Ethics Committee into an investigation into Nunes means that he can't oversee work on the Russia investigation -- although, at this point, I think we've learned enough to know that nothing important is going to come out of that investigation anyway.

Nunes says the charges against him are baseless politicking. Well, handling classified information is -- or should be -- a serious matter. Still, I'm not sure what he's supposed to have done wrong. The main thing people seemed upset about is that he informed the President before his fellow Congressmen. That can't have been an unauthorized disclosure unless the President 'didn't need to know' that he had been targeted for surveillance. I would think that would be hard to establish even if there were a formal court procedure; it's certain to come to nothing given that the Ethics committee has "not set up a special subcommittee to handle the matter and are under no requirement to issue any findings related to their investigation."

So much for that. Is there something else he's supposed to have done wrong that might actually produce some results, or was getting him to step down the only result anyone cared about?

In any case, I note that Trey Gowdy is in a sense elevated by Nunes' removal. I will be surprised if that leads to an improved outcome from the Democrats' perspective, but they called the ball.