WASHINGTON — The 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks highlighted the key oversight role and growing stature of Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House intelligence committee.
Spies brief him. Multibillion dollar black budgets await him. Television producers invite him to assess the terrorism threat as he did Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“I think we’re even worse today,” Nunes said, comparing the situation to last year. “I think the threat level is even higher.”
Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence since January 2015, Nunes appeared Sunday on the same show as CIA Director John Brennan. Both men share secrets, though they took very different paths to their current positions.
Brennan is a 60-year-old career intelligence officer, who ingratiated himself with President Barack Obama while serving as his White House counterterrorism adviser. Nunes is a 42-year-old lawmaker with an agricultural background who is a frequent critic of the president’s national security policies.
“I’m concerned that we’re not paying close enough attention to the growth of radical jihadism,” Nunes said Sunday. “We just don’t know where these guys are hiding.”
Brennan put a different spin on the post-9/11 picture.
“We’ve learned a lot (and) we’ve done a lot,” Brennan said. “I believe today it’s much more difficult for these groups to carry out the type of attack they did 15 years ago.”
Brennan cited, in particular, actions undertaken “to make sure different parts of government are able to work better together and share information.” The study commonly known as the 9/11 Commission Report cited “bureaucratic rivalries” and lack of communication as among the problems that left the United States vulnerable to the attacks in which hijackers flew airplanes into the Pentagon and the two World Trade Center buildings.
At the time of the attacks, Nunes was a trustee of the College of the Sequoias and considering his first House race. Brennan was deputy executive director of the CIA. Neither was being invited to Sunday talk shows.
The Washington-based Sunday talk shows, including “Face the Nation,” “Meet the Press” and “Fox News Sunday,” enable lawmakers and top officials to frame debates and boost their own visibility. In turn, high-stature guests such as Nunes and Brennan are considered a big “get” for the competing shows,
In addition to his 4 1/2-minute “Face the Nation” appearance Sunday morning, Nunes appeared later on Fox News. He turned down one other Sunday talk show, and fielded several interview requests from reporters working on 9/11 anniversary stories.
The ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of Burbank, appears more often, offering his public assessment on various national security issues. Last year, Schiff cited his intelligence oversight responsibilities in ruling out running for the U.S. Senate now held by California’s retiring Democrat, Sen. Barbara Boxer.
Adding to California’s clout on intelligence matters, Schiff’s counterpart as senior Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is the state’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who headed the committee when Democrats controlled the Senate.
