Devin Nunes encourages Kremlin propaganda machine to promote his message

House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes on Wednesday sent out what appeared to be a tongue-in-cheek plea from his personal Twitter account to Russian social media propagandists to make a story about his arch rival on the panel “go viral.”

In his tweet, the California Republican wrote: “Catch up on mainstream media Russian conspiracy theories in this piece by @FDRLST PS-If you are a Russian Bot please make this go viral PSS-If you’re not a Russian Bot you will become one if you retweet.”

The story, “How The Media Enable Rep. Adam Schiff’s Russian Bot Conspiracy Theories,” was published by the conservative online magazine The Federalist.

“For more than a year, Adam Schiff has been hopping to all the TV stations claiming, without benefit of specifics, the existence of a vast conspiracy between President Trump and Russia,” the article states.

Mr. Schiff, the highest-ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, has battled for months with Mr. Nunes over the direction of the panel’s work, with the committee being seen around Washington as ground zero for partisan Congressional skirmishing in the overall Russian election-meddling saga.

In recent weeks, the two lawmakers caused major controversy by drafting dueling memos addressing allegations of surveillance abuses by the FBI and Justice Department.

Earlier this month, rumors circulated that distrust on the panel was so deep that Mr. Nunes was contemplating building a physical wall in the committee’s office to separate Republican and Democratic staffers.

Issues of Russian social media propaganda have also been increasingly in the spotlight, especially after last week’s indictment by special counsel Robert Mueller against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

The indictments detail a sprawling, multi-year effort by the Kremlin to divide Americans leading up to the 2016 election by inflaming social media with hateful, divisive commentary and disinformation promoted by automated “bots.”