Tag Archives: House Intelligence committee

Controversial Republican memo to be released quickly: White House official

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly listens as U.S. President Donald Trump delivers his first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress inside the House Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 30, 2018.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House plans to release a classified House Intelligence Committee memo that Republicans say shows anti-Trump bias by the FBI and the Justice Department, U.S. President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly, said on Wednesday.

“It will be released here pretty quick, I think, and then the whole world can see it,” Kelly said in an interview on Fox News Radio, adding he had seen the four-page document and that White House lawyers were reviewing it.

Kelly’s comments follow Trump’s response to a Republican lawmaker after his State of the Union speech on Tuesday that suggested there was a “100 percent chance” the memo would be made public.

Justice Department officials have warned that releasing the memo would be reckless. On Monday, department officials advised Kelly against releasing the memo on the grounds it could jeopardize classified information, the Washington Post reported.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has told the White House the memo contains inaccurate information and offers a false picture, according to Bloomberg News.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told CNN on Wednesday the memo was still being reviewed and “there’s always a chance” that it would not be released.

The memo has become a lightning rod in a bitter partisan fight over the FBI amid ongoing investigations into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and any possible collusion by Trump’s campaign, something both Russia and Trump have denied.

Republicans, who blocked an effort to release a counterpoint memo by Democrats on the panel, have said it shows anti-Trump bias by the FBI and the Justice Department in seeking a warrant to conduct an intelligence eavesdropping operation.

Democrats have said the memo selectively uses highly classified materials in a misleading effort to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the Justice Department’s Russia probe, and Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who hired him.

The House panel this week voted along partisan lines to release the memo. Trump has until the weekend to decide whether to make it public.

“The priority here is not our national security, it’s not the country, it’s not the interest of justice. It’s just the naked, personal interest of the president,” U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, the panel’s top Democrat, said at an event hosted by the Axios news outlet.

Sanders told CNN Trump had not seen the memo before his address on Tuesday night or immediately afterwards.

The document was commissioned by Representative Devin Nunes, the House committee’s Republican chairman who had recused himself from the panel’s Russia probe.

Sanders said she did not know if Nunes had worked with anyone at the White House on it: “I’m not aware of any conversations or coordination with Congressman Nunes.”

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Katanga Johnson and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Andrew Hay and Bernadette Baum)

House panel votes to release Republican memo alleging anti-Trump bias

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) arrives for closed meeting of the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 16, 2018.

By Patricia Zengerle and John Walcott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House Intelligence Committee voted along party lines on Monday to release a classified memo that Republicans say shows anti-Trump bias by the FBI and the Justice Department in seeking a warrant to conduct an intelligence eavesdropping operation.

In approving the release under a rule never before invoked, the Republican majority ignored a warning from Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd that making the document public would be “extraordinarily reckless” without submitting it to a security review.

The move added new fuel to bitter partisan wrangling over investigations by congressional committees and Special Counsel Robert Mueller into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Calling it a “sad day” for the intelligence committee, top Democratic Representative Adam Schiff said the panel also voted against releasing a Democratic memo that countered the Republican report and rejected his call for a briefing by Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray.

“Today this committee voted to put the president’s personal interest, perhaps their own political interests, above the national interest,” Schiff said.

The memo was commissioned by Representative Devin Nunes, the committee’s Republican chairman. A Nunes spokesman did not immediately respond for a request for a statement.

The Department of Justice declined comment.

Two sources familiar with the memo said it accuses the FBI and the Justice Department of abusing their authority in asking a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge to approve a request to extend an eavesdropping operation on Carter Page, an adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign.

The memo charges that the FBI and the Justice Department based the request on a dossier compiled by a former British spy hired to dig up negative information on Trump by a research firm partially financed by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, the sources said.

The dossier, however, was only part of the material on which the request was based, and any portion of the dossier used as evidence first would have been independently confirmed by U.S. or allied intelligence or law enforcement agencies, one of the sources said.

“There is no way any court would approve a warrant – any warrant, let alone one for surveillance on an American citizen – based on uncorroborated information,” said this source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The second source, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the memo accuses Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Andrew McCabe, who on Monday announced his resignation as deputy FBI director, of allowing pro-Democratic sentiments to color Mueller’s investigation.

The New York Times first reported the contents of the memo.

Democrats have criticized the document as “highly misleading,” based on a selective use of highly classified materials and intended to discredit Mueller, who was appointed by Rosenstein.

Russia denies interfering in the 2016 election, and Trump repeatedly has denied there was any collusion.

The House vote gave Trump up to five days to decide whether to release the classified document under a rule that has never before been used.

But Hogan Gidley, the White House deputy press secretary, told CNN that the vote has no bearing for Trump because if he takes no action, the memo will become public.

Representative Mike Conaway, a senior committee Republican, said Republicans voted against releasing the Democrats’ memo because the House of Representatives had not had a chance to read it. He said the committee agreed to let House members read it and would consider making it public after that.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Jonathan Landay and Eric Beech; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Lisa Shumaker)