Quick Thoughts on The Nunes Memo

National Review  "Here’s my quick takes on the “Nunes Memo” that was just released: 
"1. Like basically everything that has come out of Congressional investigators the past 229 years, this is a partisan document – written by partisans, in the context of partisan controversies, and contested to the extent possible by by the opposing partisans for partisan reasons. (Notably, the Democratic responses so far have suggested that the memo misleadingly omits important facts, but there has – thus far, and this may change – not been a similar effort to claim that the factual assertions in the memo are themselves inaccurate). Readers should view it with appropriate skepticism. That said, the media drumbeat of downplaying the memo in advance on the basis of it being a partisan product is just wildly hypocritical, as reporting on the work of Democratic investigators during the Bush (both), Reagan, and Nixon presidencies was never prefaced with things like this:
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"If Democrats take over one or both Houses of Congress in 2019, expect the media to go back to headlines that focus on the merits of their findings, not how partisan the people presenting them are. Indeed, the entire point of the Nunes Memo is that information derived from a partisan source (the Steele dossier, an opposition research product financed by the DNC and the Clinton campaign) should have been met with more skepticism and labeled as such." . . .

Andrew C. McCarthy: House Memo Details Use of Steele Dossier to Spy on Trump Campaign Adviser
. . . "What we have long suspected (see, e.g., here and here) has now been confirmed: The Obama Justice Department and the FBI used the unverified Steele dossier to convince a federal court to issue a warrant authorizing surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser. Confirmation came in the much-anticipated memorandum released today by the Republican-controlled House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The memo states that the Obama administration concealed from the court that the dossier was commissioned and paid for by the political campaign of Donald Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. Nor was the court informed that the dossier’s author, former British spy Christopher Steele, told a senior Justice Department official that he was “desperate” to prevent Trump from being elected president." . . .