[The Hill] Three former CIA analysts argued Wednesday that Chairman Devin Nunes (Calif.) and other Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee can’t be trusted to defend national security after they pushed for the release of a classified memo that accuses the FBI of abusing surveillance programs.Former analysts Jeff Asher, Nada Bakos and Cindy Otis wrote in an opinion piece for CNN that Nunes degraded the committee’s effectiveness as an oversight mechanism by politicizing intelligence information.
"Republicans who were so concerned about leaks of classified information during the last year are now pushing for the release of top secret information to the public, cherry-picked to undermine agencies for which they are meant to be stewards," they wrote.
"From this point forward, the House Intelligence Committee’s assessment of the intelligence community should be met with skepticism by the public and Congress alike. When we look back on this administration in a few years, we believe this incident will be marked as one of the worst cases of politicization of intelligence in modern American history," they added.