Trump praises Nunes as ‘courageous’ during CIA ceremony

President Trump on Monday morning lauded House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) as “a very courageous man” during his remarks at the swearing-in of CIA Director Gina Haspel. 

“A very courageous man — he’s courageous,” Trump said. “Thank you very much, Devin, for being here, appreciate it.”

Nunes is in a tense standoff with the Justice Department over documents related to the opening of the counterintelligence investigation into Russian meddling in the U.S. election — a request that Trump has backed but senior intelligence officials have warned could endanger lives.

A subpoena from Nunes for the documents last week — with which the department has not yet complied — led to the revelation that the FBI had used a confidential informant to investigate the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia during the election.

There is no public evidence that the informant or the bureau acted inappropriately.

Trump has suggested that the existence of the source shows that the FBI tried to “frame” him, a suggestion that Nunes has also echoed.

“I think if the campaign was somehow set up, I think that would be a problem, right? If there were somehow meetings that occurred and all of this was a setup?” Nunes said on “Fox & Friends” last week.

Nunes served on Trump’s transition team, a position that intelligence oversight experts say was unusual for a chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and has been one of the president’s fiercest allies on Capitol Hill in his efforts to “fight back” against the Russia investigation.

The intel chairman has faced allegations in the past of running interference for the White House.

In April 2017, he briefed reporters on evidence he said he received from a whistleblower showing inappropriate “unmasking” of Trump campaign officials — information that later turned out to have been provided to him by White House officials.

The allegations were seen by critics as a way to substantiate Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that former President Obama “wiretapped” him during the campaign.