Dark-Money Group Targets Devin Nunes for Attacking “Conservative Hero” Jeff Sessions

“Sounds like a scheme Nancy Pelosi cooked up over in San Francisco”

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)J. Scott Applewhite/AP

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A new radio ad is attacking Trump loyalist Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) for feuding with another Trump loyalist, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom the ad describes as “a conservative hero. An icon. A legend.”

Earlier this month, Nunes, the chair of the House intelligence committee, threatened to hold Sessions in contempt of Congress because the Justice Department has declined to hand over classified material related to the Russia investigation. “Sounds like a scheme Nancy Pelosi cooked up over in San Francisco, don’t you think?” says the ad’s narrator. “Tell Nunes to stop playing games and get back to work.”

Swamp Accountability Project, a recently launched dark money outfit, is running the ads on talk radio stations in Nunes’ Central California district, according to the politics blog Flash Report. Republican consultant Liz Mair, a strategist for the Swamp Accountability Project, writes:

The bottom line is, Nunes is attacking one of the country’s most principled conservatives and attempting to undermine a probe that has been ruthlessly effective in going after Beltway swamp creatures like Crooked Hillary’s friend and ally Tony Podesta…

In the House, Rep. Nunes’ chamber, the Farm Bill is moving. That’s a considerably more important issue for his district than holding a stalwart, rock-ribbed conservative icon like Sessions in Contempt of Congress.

And that is why we’re running this ad: To highlight to Nunes’ constituents his misplaced priorities. Hopefully, he’ll refocus in the coming weeks.

Andrew Janz, Nunes’ main Democratic challenger, took note of the ad, saying, “The floodgates are opening on my opponent’s poor record of serving our community and our country. Nunes wants to claim his recent controversies have been a liberal hit job, but here he is taking fire from his own side.”

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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