The political news cycle is fast, and keeping up can be overwhelming. Trying to find differing perspectives worth your time is even harder. That’s why we have scoured the internet for political writing from the right and left that you might not have seen.
Has this series exposed you to new ideas? Tell us how. Email us at ourpicks@nytimes.com.
For an archive of all the Partisan Writing Roundups, check out Our Picks.
From the Right
The editors in National Review:
“You don’t have to be Sean Hannity to be curious about the beginning of the investigation and its conduct, given the disturbing revelations of the last few months.”
The editorial board at National Review think that the news media (particularly on the left) has overreacted to a push to release a memo drafted by Republican staff members on the House Intelligence Committee, overseen by Representative Devin Nunes of California. They urge the F.B.I. and the Democrats to share their own sides of the story, writing, “This is called public debate, and we assure the Red hunters on the left that this is not how the Kremlin conducts its affairs.” Read more »
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Noah Rothman in NBC:
“Unfortunately, they’ve conflated their frustration with the conduct of the Clinton investigation with the handling of the Trump probe, and that conflation has confused otherwise persuadable observers.”
According to Mr. Rothman, conservatives are right to scrutinize the F.B.I.’s actions, but they have the wrong target in mind. Rather than focusing, as the Nunes memo does, on the law enforcement agency’s handling of the Trump campaign, conservatives should instead be calling for accountability on investigations into Hillary Clinton’s behavior. Read more »
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From the Left
Greg Sargent in The Washington Post:
“Ryan and every Republican who supports its release know that he is opening the door to the possibility of a very serious escalation in Trump’s abuse of power.”
Any Republican who does not publicly opposing the release of the Nunes memo, Mr. Sargent contends, is actively aiding the president in politicizing law enforcement. Read more »
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Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine:
“It is odd that this bout of civil-libertarian fervor should strike just days after House Republicans voted to renew section 702 of FISA … with no reforms or limits whatsoever.”
Mr. Chait points to the hypocrisy of Republicans who claim that the aim of the Nunes memo is to expose an abuse of the civil liberties of Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign. According to Mr. Chait, Republicans’ newfound concern for the privacy of Mr. Page stands in direct opposition to their “lack of concern about reauthorizing warrantless wiretaps.” Read more »
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Finally, From the Center
“As a Fourth Amendment nerd, it seems to me that the premise of #ReleaseTheMemo is pretty dubious.”
Although the memo has yet to be made public, some analysts are presuming that the document asserts that a FISA warrant to monitor Mr. Page was issued by withholding relevant information from the court about the provenance of the evidence against him. Those pushing for the memo’s release argue that because the Justice Department used the dossier compiled by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, and never told the court that the document was funded by Democrats, the whole investigation into the Trump’s campaign collusion with Russia was tainted from the start. Mr. Kerr, a libertarian-leaning lawyer, has considerable experience in these questions. He explains how federal judges have faced similar claims in litigation, they have mostly rejected them out of hand.” Read more »
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“Mere self-protection wouldn’t ordinarily justify taking the radical step of the F.B.I.’s public statement. Something much more important is at stake.”
Mr. Feldman argues that Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, is not merely protecting his agency’s reputation when he urged the White House not to release the Nunes memo. Instead, his actions convince Mr. Feldman that he is “fighting back on behalf of the unwritten norm against injecting politics into investigations.” Read more »
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“The use of Rule X to actually disclose information could be a game changer in the relationship to federal agencies in this area.”
Mr. Turley, a law professor and constitutional scholar at George Washington University, explains how the whole memo episode may strengthen a rule that has “until now, only been discussed in the abstract by fringe elements in politics and the law.” Subsection 11(g) of Rule X empowers intelligence committees to exercise oversight over intelligence agencies known for overclassifying documents that may be embarrassing or damaging to the agency’s reputation. Read more »
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