The Nunes I knew was a purely partisan animal. When it comes to exercising good judgment and discharging his duties in service of the Constitution, he’s just not up to the task.

He saw everything through a Republican vs. Democrat lens. In weekly conference meetings for Republican House members, Nunes was always one of then-Speaker John A. Boehner’s or Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s go-to lieutenants, willing to tout the party line and make sure the rest of us lined up like obedient boys and girls. During my brief tenure, I was one of the more outspoken tea party members, regularly at odds with leadership when it came to budget or government-funding legislation. I still vividly recall Nunes lambasting us as obstinate obstructionists on many occasions, trying to bend us to leadership’s will on votes that went against our principles. With Nunes, I found it was all about politics, almost never about policy.