Another alum of Rep. Devin Nunes’ House intelligence committee has taken a White House post.
Scott Glabe, previously the deputy staff director for Nunes on the House intelligence committee, recently moved to the White House Counsel’s office, two sources familiar with the move told The Daily Beast.
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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CNN reported earlier this month that another Nunes alum, Kash Patel, took a job on the National Security Council.
Nunes and his staff on the House intelligence committee have taken withering criticism from the Intelligence Community for their work scrutinizing the genesis of the Justice Department’s Russia probe. Nunes has argued the investigation was a political hit job on then-candidate Donald Trump, and that Justice Department officials engaged in gross wrongdoing when they obtained legal authorization to surveil Trump campaign associate Carter Page.
The Justice Department, meanwhile, has pushed back vociferously, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has defended the probe, which Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s wide-ranging investigation grew out of.
Glabe started working for Nunes on the House intelligence committee in January 2016, according to the congressional staff database Legistorm. He began as deputy general counsel, then became policy director, and then deputy staff director, according to the site. His worked there during a time of extraordinary tumult, as Republicans and Democrats on the panel warred over how to investigate Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. Nunes stepped back from the committee’s Russia investigation after making a late-night visit to the White House grounds and claiming he had reviewed evidence of troubling activity by the U.S. Intelligence Community.
Nunes handed the reins of the investigation to other committee Republicans, but his staff remained deeply involved and he never formally recused. The investigation was bifurcated into two warring halves: Nunes and his staff scrutinizing the inception of the Russia investigation, and Democrats and some Republicans examining Russia’s 2016 interference.
The tension crested when Nunes’ staff released a report on the process the FBI went through to get authorization from a secret court to surveil Page. They released a memo alleging breaches of protocol. Democrats and Intelligence Community officials said the memo lacked vital context and mischaracterized the process by which courts authorize secret surveillance of Americans. Patel, now at the White House, played a central role in producing that memo.
