DOUG THOMPSON: With friends like Nunes ...

Good rule, even for congressmen: First do no harm

Suppose I had affair with an FBI agent's wife. Now suppose my lover's husband found out. Suppose I also ran a successful business and owned a warehouse.

Now suppose the agent came to my office and screamed threats at me. Suppose he yelled I would regret ever having met his wife. Suppose he growled I had better watch out. Suppose he showed his shoulder holster with a gun while doing this.

Now suppose a hidden security camera in my office caught the whole thing. Every word of the threats was clear. Now suppose I copied the video to a disc and put the recording in a secure place. Say that place was inside a safe in my warehouse.

Now suppose a month or so goes by. Suppose word leaks to the press I am under investigation for dealing in meth. Now suppose my lawyer and I host a news conference. Agent so-and-so is biased against me and I have proof, I declare.

So in this fantasy I lead a gaggle of reporters, photographers and camera men into my warehouse. Law enforcement agents come too, along with my fellow members of the local chamber of commerce. We walk through the warehouse to my safe -- passing a shiny and elaborate meth lab. Barrels of chemicals for making meth line a wall. A couple of known meth cookers stand there, wearing protective clothing including respirators, the big ones that look like gas masks.

We finally reach the safe. I open it. Inside is a huge, neatly arranged stack of cash. I reach the disc, pop it into a player hooked to a television there and show the recording. I then turn to the audience and declare: "See? Bias."

There are a several morals to this ridiculous story.

First, proving someone is biased and proving he lied are two different things. Second, bias is bad but other things are worse.

Third, those who seek to prove bias in others should be aware of and account for their own. They should beware of appearing much more biased than those they seek to discredit for bias.

Fourth, proving bias is not a "get out of jail free" card. Fifth, being stupid is much worse than being biased. Being stupid and biased is worst of all.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court documents released last weekend never would have seen the light of day if the president's defenders were not so dead-set on proving bias.

Those petitions sought surveillance of a flunky once involved in the president's campaign in 2016. The documents are heavily redacted, but show that four different judges ruled the surveillance was justified. This was known before the documents was released. The documents also show the president's defenders lied back in February when the now-infamous "Nunes memo" was released. That was known already, too.

The Nunes memo is named after the chairman of the ironically named House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. If this guy had to do brain surgery, he would bring a chainsaw and a crowbar.

Wanting to defend the president and being able to do it are two vastly different things. Opposition research by Hillary Clinton's campaign for president found some of the evidence used to get warrants for the surveillance. Nunes' famous memo claimed the FBI failed to tell the courts that. Even the very limited documents revealed with the memo in February showed that claim to be false. The latest documents merely hammered that fact home -- with a pile driver.

Campaigns do opposition research on each other. Sometimes, they find interesting stuff. The FBI told the courts information passed through the opposing campaign's hands. Unlike the congressman, the FBI knows what a grain of salt is and how to use it. They do not dismiss solid leads because someone working for a partisan campaign found it.

So the biggest new thing revealed last weekend is that the president's defenders who followed Nunes' line did not just lie in February. They lied like a rug. Then they lied again by saying the new documents vindicated them.

They are making stuff up as they go along. They are really, really bad at it.

An unbiased person can look at the weird, flailing and sometimes desperate efforts of Nunes and his ilk to run interference for the president and wonder if more is involved here than a strong mix of blind partisan loyalty and incompetence.

I would recommend to Rep. Nunes a good old rule: First, do no harm.

Commentary on 07/28/2018

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