Conspicuously, however, many of the representatives most vocally touting the supposedly explosive contents of the Nunes memo do not appear to believe the systemic abuse of intelligence authorities they’re alleging calls for a rethinking of any of those authorities. As Marcy Wheeler notes, the same Steve King who thought the Nunes memo documented abuses “worse than Watergate” not only voted to extend section 702 for another six years, but voted against an amendment that would have imposed a warrant requirement on queries of the 702 database pertaining to American. So did Nunes himself, as well as Reps. Matt Gaetz and Ron DeSantis.

This should seem incongruous on its face. One need not believe that there are ongoing partisan conspiracies within the FBI and Justice Department to support more stringent civil liberties safeguards on the broad spying authorities the intelligence community has accumulated over the past two decades. But it is very hard to understand how one could believe such a conspiracy exists—indeed, continues to be covered up by sitting officials—yet reject even the idea of pausing to debate such safeguards before renewing precisely the sorts of powers one claims have been abused.

The 702 votes aren’t the only incongruity: Nunes and his allies aren’t in any respect behaving as you might expect from members of Congress who have uncovered serious intelligence abuses. They’ve resisted sharing their findings with their own colleagues on the Senate Intelligence Committee, nor did they hasten to send copies to the Trump appointees now heading the Justice Department and the FBI itself.