(Clay Bennett/Chattanooga Times Free Press (WPWG) 2018)

AFTER WEEKS of big-game speculation, buildup and angling for advantage between two fierce sides, the February kickoff has finally arrived.

And by that, we of course mean the anticipated release of “the Nunes memo.”

[What is the memo?]

On Friday, as The Washington Post reports, President Trump is expected to give a big thumbs-up to releasing that much-debated congressional memo into the wild, prompting House Republicans to make it public, possibly as soon as the same day.

The hot-button memo, written by Republicans on Rep. Devin Nunes’s (Calif.) House Intelligence Committee, suggests “that the origins of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election were tainted by political bias,” The Post says. Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) wrote that Nunes had “turned the panel’s proceedings into a ‘charade’ and a ‘coverup campaign . . . to hide the truth about the Trump-Russia scandal.’ ”

So as part of the memo-release pregame, here’s a sampling of how America’s cartoonists are viewing Washington’s big event:

TOM TOLES (The Washington Post):


(Tom Toles/The Washington Post 2018)

DARRIN BELL (WPWG):


(Darrin Bell (WPWG) 2018)

JOHN COLE (Scranton Times-Tribune):

(John Cole/Scranton Times-Tribune (CagleCartoons.com) 2018)

BOB ENGLEHART (Cagle Cartoons):

(Bob Englehart (CagleCartoons.com) 2018)

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