Ranking Member on the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff is criticizing the FBI for redacting too much information contained in the Democratic memo. The memo was written in response to a Republican memo that alleges abuse by the FBI in obtaining FISA surveillance warrants. Schiff is taking issue with the fact that the FBI is attempting to block any new information from being made public in the memo.
“The FBI has identified in the memo, in our response, essentially everything that isn’t already a matter of public record that wasn’t already declassified,” Schiff told reporters. Schiff argues that because the Republican memo contained completely new information, the Democrats rebuttal memo should be allowed to do so as well.
“The GOP memo was all classified before it was declassified. There is a great deal in the Democratic response that has already been declassified,” Schiff added. The Republican memo had included facts that had been reported by news outlets but never confirmed by the FBI.
Schiff had previously criticized Republicans for not deferring to the FBI on what information should be kept classified and what could be divulged in their memo. But he says, he will continue to work with the FBI on what information can be made public. He also pointed out that the FBI has not labeled the Democratic version inaccurate, something they did allude to when describing the Republican memo.
“The FBI has as far as I can tell taken no issue with the accuracy of what we have written. So unlike the Republican memo, the Nunes memo, which they considered to be misleading and inaccurate, there is no issue on the accuracy of what we’ve written largely because we’ve taken the material facts from the FISA application,” Schiff said.