Devin Nunes has his own fake news site

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes' (R-Calif.) campaign bankrolls a conservative media site, The California Republican, that looks like a local news site and is classified on Facebook as a "media/news company," Politico reports. The site purports to serve up "the best of U.S., California, and Central Valley news, sports, and analysis," but mostly puts a partisan spin on articles from conservative and mainstream news sites.

The most recent article was titled "Understanding the process behind #ReleaseTheMemo," with a photo of Nunes, who compiled the partisan memo seeking to discredit the Russia investigation. The news itself isn't necessarily "fake," as The California Republican notes in its rebuttal to the Politico article, but a website paid for by a political campaign wouldn't typically be classified as a "news" site, or at least not a real one.

The website was registered in mid-2017 by Fresno consultant Alex Tavalian, who told Politico he has registered several domains for the Nunes campaign but was not involved with The California Republican. Nunes chief of staff Anthony Ratekin responded tartly: "Until Politico retracts its multitude of fake stories on Congressman Nunes, we will not go on the record."

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Nunes, a member of President Trump's presidential transition leadership, has sharply politicized the House Intelligence Committee, leading the hometown Fresno Bee to call Nunes "Trump's stooge" out "doing dirty work for House Republican leaders trying to protect President Donald Trump in the Russia investigation." Nunes is clearly put off by the bad press, telling Rush Limbaugh last week that "almost every story that runs about me is fake."

Still, his campaign has $3.8 million in cash on hand in a district Trump won by 10 points in 2016, so the negative press doesn't seem to be hurting him much. His main Democratic challenger, Andrew Janz, called The California Republican "typical Devin Nunes," adding: "He's got fake memos, fake websites, and fake news."