Raj Shah, the guy who CNN can’t seem to remember, talked to the press gaggle on Air Force One today. He was asked about the idea that has been bandied about, by people like John Cornyn, that a second special counsel is needed to investigate allegations of malfeasance in the FBI and the Department of Justice.

Q. FISA warrant should it be released? and what about a second special counsel?*

SHAH: Presidents attorneys have addressed this and said yes to a second special counsel.

SHAH FISA: That document along with any other that the House Intelligence Committee chooses to vote out of its committee through its process and all the House procedures, we would entertain like anything else.

I don’t know if we will see a second special counsel but if one is appointed he will at least have a finite underlying offense, like industrial scale violations of the Hatch Act, to focus on. The fact that the White House is signaling that it wants one, however, is a sign that there is a better than even chance that one will be appointed.

The second issue, that of declassifying the underlying FISA warrant, is also of paramount importance. I’m much more inclined to believe Trey Gowdy and Devin Nunes and the narrative they laid out in the memo released last Friday–gee, remember when there was a time when conservatives didn’t reflexively side with progressive Democrats with a reputation of lying–than I am Adam Schiff, fat Jerry Nadler, and all manner of anonymous sources. The only way this is going to be put to bed is by making the FISA warrant application on Carter Page public. At this stage, I’m opposed to any redactions. If a couple of sources get burned, f*** it. I don’t care. The stakes are simply too high to let the FBI cover its ass while claiming to be protecting national security.

Right now, Schiff is playing a game of tarting up his “memo” with all kinds of classified information and counting on the committee majority to not release it so he can leak his characterization of the memo and accuse the majority of suppressing it.

The White House just said if the House releases Schiff’s memo, the president will not hold it back.

Because of the way the White House is playing this, I’m pretty confident they aren’t scared of the outcome.

As a note, the House Intelligence Committee has just voted to release the Democrat memo.