House Intel Chair Devin Nuness One-Man War on the Pentagon

[riversedge]

I wanted to know more about Nunes so started reading some articles about him.


Very informative article. Nunes really did not back down on trying to keep this isolated base simply because of his families ancestry ties to the islands. He uses his influence anyway he can.



http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421842/devin-nunes-pentagon-fight-lajes-air-force-base




House Intel Chair Devin Nunes’s One-Man War on the Pentagon Nunes (left) and Paul Ryan in committee, March 2014. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty)


by Brendan Bordelon July 31, 2015 4:00 AM @brendanbordelon



The powerful Republican is battling the DoD to move a massive intelligence complex to an isolated island in the Azores, at a reported extra cost of $1.2 billion. Why?



Air-traffic controllers waved off the plane carrying Representative Devin Nunes (R., Calif.) and several congressmen from the House Intelligence Committee as it descended toward the single runway at Lajes Field, a sleepy U.S. Air Force base perched along a windswept Azores island 1,000 miles from the European mainland. High winds sweeping in from the sea prevented the plane from landing, and the delegation was hastily diverted to an airstrip on a neighboring island 80 miles away.


After months of wrangling with the Defense Department, Nunes and his fellow lawmakers had come to Lajes last May to urge American officials to reverse a planned downsizing of the base. The lawmakers wanted Pentagon officials to instead move a massive, strategically vital intelligence center planned for the United Kingdom to the isolated mid-Atlantic base. The officials objected, citing a cost increase of $1.2 billion and serious operational and logistical concerns, including the base’s single runway and the area’s inclement weather, which the congressmen had experienced just the day before.



An after-action report from a Defense Department engineer shows that the group from Washington wouldn’t take no for an answer. “A few of the members and staffers were very confrontational,” the report reads. “One quote that was repeated several times was, ‘This is going to happen [relocating the intelligence facility to Lajes]. You better jump on board the train or you are going to get run over by it.’”



The incident was another skirmish in the increasingly nasty war between Nunes and his allies in Congress and a group of top Pentagon officials over the fate of the obscure airbase. As chairman of the powerful Intelligence Committee, Nunes has brought the full weight of his influence to bear on the issue, inserting provisions in four separate defense bills that would stop work on the planned U.K. base and accusing the DoD of “lying” about the intelligence complex’s Lajes price tag. Recently, the House Oversight Committee opened an investigation into how the military calculated the estimated cost of basing the project in the Azores.


“These are just clueless Pentagon lackeys, bureaucrats that are spewing out garbage,” Nunes tells National Review.



Nunes’s opponents question the motivations behind his fight. The congressman has close ties to the Azores; as the descendant of Azorean immigrants, a major celebrity in Portugal, and a frequent contact of the Portuguese government, he’s led the opposition to the plan to downsize Lajes from day one. The fight began in 2012, when the Defense Department decided to reduce its footprint at the mid-Atlantic stopover, now averaging just two flights a day. “Those guys are just sitting around out there,” one DoD official says....................

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421842/devin-nunes-pentagon-fight-lajes-air-force-base

[vlyons]

1. Nunnes has financial ties to Russia

You have but to scratch the surface on any Republican to find that they are all about the love of money. Nunnes net worth is mostly tied into exporting his wine to Russia.

http://www.palmerreport.com/news/russia-devin-nunes-donald-trump/2019/

[riversedge]

2. Nunes makes frequent visits to the Azores.

His financial disclosures shows his net worth to be only about 50,OOO$ and it is tied up in his investment in the winery.
Perhaps he spends his money flying him and his family to the islands back and forth.



Nunes can’t explain why or how multiple subsections of the Defense Department would lie about Lajes. But the House Intelligence chairman’s own relationship with the Azores and the Portuguese government is extensive — and a private source of consternation for some congressional and defense staffers. Nunes sometimes visits his distant cousins on other islands in the archipelago during his frequent vacations there. During a visit just before the July 4 weekend, he attended a ceremony thrown in his honor by his ancestral village. The deputy prime minister of Portugal, Paulo Portas, flew into the Azores specifically to attend the event, and the Azores’ vice president, Sergio Avila, also attended. Both Portuguese politicians gave speeches, and the fate of Lajes featured heavily in their remarks. Hailing Nunes as “one of the eight most influential statesmen” in the United States, Portas applauded his efforts to “engage seriously in finding solutions on the American side” for Lajes, “ensur[ing] better solutions for the population of Terceira and the economy of Terceira.” Avila stressed that Nunes’s lobbying for the intelligence facility is “perfectly in line” with the Portuguese government’s position on the issue, and praised the congressman for “defending the interests of the Azores.” After the ceremony, Nunes told the Portuguese press he was “confident” he could override the Pentagon’s objections to the base.


.....O’Hanlon says Nunes’s apparent support for a foreign workforce makes his intelligence base a tough sell back home. “He’s going to have a harder time withstanding the broader debate if this looks like pure parochial politics that doesn’t even benefit his own constituents, just his friends abroad and his ancestry,” he says.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421842/devin-nunes-pentagon-fight-lajes-air-force-base