The GOP's national security cynicism

It's not oversight. It's nihilism.

Rep. Devin Nunes.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Carlos Barria)

If you had any doubt that Republicans would try to distance themselves from President Trump's governing nihilism as they head into a daunting midterm election cycle, their efforts this week to declassify and publish a politically manufactured memo that alleges the FBI improperly surveilled a member of President Trump's campaign during the 2016 election should convince you otherwise.

It is hard to find historical parallels for this episode, and I've looked. There was the time when the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, led by Benjamin Wade, tried to force Abraham Lincoln's generals to divulge their plan for dealing with Robert E. Lee's Army, and resorted to a press leak in order to put pressure on the president. Or when that committee misleadingly used information to try to force Lincoln to replace Gen. George Meade after Gettysburg.

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Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder is TheWeek.com's editor-at-large. He is the author, with D.B. Grady, of The Command and Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry. Marc is also a contributing editor for The Atlantic and GQ. Formerly, he served as White House correspondent for National Journal, chief political consultant for CBS News, and politics editor at The Atlantic. Marc is a 2001 graduate of Harvard. He is married to Michael Park, a corporate strategy consultant, and lives in Los Angeles.