Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.

Trying to make sense of the craziness going on in Washington, DC these days would drive a sane person to beg for a padded cell in the nearest asylum.

In guessing the next big story, now that the Democrat-induced government shutdown lasted only three days, it would be this much talked about four-page ‘memo’ put together by U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, that is said to accuse the Obama Administration of illegally using the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice to spy on the Trump campaign before last year’s national election. Kaboom!

Nunes’ — ‘hot potato’ — memo is said to contain highly-sensitive classified information harmful to the FBI and DOJ. A debate involving all members of the U.S. House is under way to find a way to release or block the memo in its entirely to the public – but there are several ifs, ands or buts. The Democrats are screaming “No” while the Republicans are shouting “Yes.” The memo’s release may end up on President Donald Trump’s desk to decide to release it or not. Of course, this information should be released without redaction and let the chips fall where they may. There are way too many secrets in Washington that need a little sunshine. This ‘memo’ issue will be resolved in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

Last week the House Intelligence Committee voted along party lines to allow all members of the U.S. Congress to view Nunes’ memo that apparently is based on information so highly classified that the document must be held in a secure room within the U.S. Capitol building, according to a report in the New York Post. It’s time to let this cat out of the bag.

“If we get this memo into the public square, heads are going to roll at the FBI and the Justice Department,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) – a member of the House Judiciary Committee.

Nunes has been in the U.S. Congress since 2003 and he’s not small potatoes. He is chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and a member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. He previously served as Chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade. His solid reputation and resume is why anyone with any sense is taking him and his ‘memo’ seriously.

Then again the next big story may be the recently discovered 55,000 or so missing emails over a five-month period between high-level FBI and DOJ officials that documents a “Secret Society” between the FBI and DOJ had apparently formed after President Trump defied all odds and won the presidency. This news story has legs.

U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions has opened an official DOJ investigation into these missing FBI emails saying he would “leave no stone unturned,” according to a statement Sessions released Monday.

“DOJ will use every technology available to determine whether the missing messages are recoverable from another source,” Sessions said. “A review is already underway to ascertain what occurred and to determine if these records can be recovered in any other way. If any wrongdoing were to be found to have caused this gap, appropriate legal disciplinary measures will be taken.”

President Trump tweeted, “In one of the biggest stories in a long time, the FBI now says it is missing five-month’s-worth of lovers Strzok-Page texts, perhaps 50,000, and all in prime time. Wow!”

These missing emails involve two high-level FBI officials and DOJ investigators that have already been accused of showing extreme bias against Trump before and after Campaign 2016 and were involved with the FBI decision not to charge former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton with any crimes involving her well-known shadowy email practices during her 4-year stint as secretary-of-state and afterwards.

It was learned last weekend that the FBI told a congressman their “technical system failed to preserve texts” from the two FBI officials between Dec. 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017. This is no time for the FBI to come up with some lame excuse to have lost the very information being sought by congressional and other investigations. Sounds too much like former President Richard Nixon, Watergate and the famous ‘18-minute gap’ in Nixon’s Oval Office tape recordings which led to him being the only president to resign the presidency in 1974.

“Anyone who actually believes the FBI accidently lost 5-months of texts between the FBI agent working the Hillary email investigation and his mistress/legal assistant chief counsel for the FBI, during the period Special Counsel Mueller was appointed is seriously mentally and cognitively impaired,” said Alex Sharp, a Florida attorney and friend of the Costa Rica Star News.

And then there’s the FBI’s Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia-Trump campaign collusion investigation. News reports say Sessions was recently interviewed by Mueller himself and now he’s taking aim to question President Trump. Whether or not that meeting takes place remains to be seen. So far as anyone knows, Mueller’s team has uncovered nothing to involve Team Trump with any proof of Russian collusion to help Trump win the presidency. The indictments of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and advisor Michael Flynn had nothing to do with the Trump campaign.

It’s hard to keep track of all the ongoing investigations in congress, the DOJ and FBI. It’s a sure bet the next big stories coming out of Washington will involve these investigations, but none of them are pointing at President Trump.

About the Author Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.

Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.