Earlier today, the FBI, in what might be the only public, on-the-record statement by that agency about the Russia probe in the 14-months they’ve kept it going, issued a “warning” to the nation.

Arma=freakin-geddon awaits if you release this memo.

Now Chairman Nunes has responded:

My statement on FBI/DOJ objections to the public release of our memo: https://t.co/VhhXOWd30q

— Devin Nunes (@DevinNunes) January 31, 2018

“Having stonewalled Congress’ demands for information for nearly a year, it’s no surprise to see the FBI and DOJ issue spurious objections to allowing the American people to see information related to surveillance abuses at these agencies. The FBI is intimately familiar with ‘material omissions’ with respect to their presentations to both Congress and the courts, and they are welcome to make public, to the greatest extent possible, all the information they have on these abuses. Regardless, it’s clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counter-intelligence investigation during an American political campaign. Once the truth gets out, we can begin taking steps to ensure our intelligence agencies and courts are never misused like this again.”

He is absolutely right. The FBI leadership has tried every way possible to hide their partisan activities on behalf of Hillary Clinton. We all know the sordid history. The FBI never looked at the allegedly hacked DNC server and had to rely upon a third-party vendor hired by the same law firm that hired Fusion GPS to do forensic analysis. Hillary Clinton was cleared of charges by James Comey two months before she was even interviewed. Andrew McCabe sat on the investigation into classified materials found on Anthony Weiner’s computer for three weeks. The FBI collaborated with Fusion GPS’s researcher, used his work product for FISA warrant application(s), and may or may not have paid that researcher to continue his work after the election. The fact that the Intelligence Committee had to threaten Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray with contempt of Congress citations in order to get them to respond to committee subpoenas tells you how serious they were about obstructing the committee’s investigation.

If the FBI has issues with context or misleading impressions then they are uniquely situated to fix the problem. They have the source documents. They can redact them until they feel like they can drop their comfort blankey and turn off their night light and they can release the source documents.

But we all know what the FBI did. They don’t have a defense and they are trying to create a counter narrative that says the memo is partisan and unreliable based on their word alone. The problem is that their word isn’t worth a lot on this issue. And will be worth a lot less next week.