U.S. House of Representatives
Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) on Tuesday broke with his own party’s leadership to join calls for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) to recuse himself from his own panel’s probing of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Becoming the first Republican in Congress to do so, Jones said, “How can you be chairman of a major committee and do all these things behind the scenes and keep your credibility? You can’t keep your credibility.” Nunes has come under fire from Democratic lawmakers after it was revealed that he visited White House grounds to obtain evidence allegedly proving President Trump’s transition team was “incidentally” surveilled. “If anything has shown that we need a commission, this has done it by the way he has acted,” Jones added, echoing calls for the establishment of an independent commission. “That’s the only way you can bring integrity to the process. The integrity of the committee looking into this has been tainted.”