Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee have released a memo that rebuts findings in a Republican memo released weeks ago that alleges abuses by the FBI and the Department of Justice in obtaining FISA warrants to spy on members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election.
The House Intelligence Committee had voted unanimously to make the memo public, a step that first had to be approved by the White House under Committee rules. The President declined to approve the memo at the time citing objections by the FBI and DOJ to certain information contained in the memo being made public.
Ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Adam Schiff had said that he had reviewed the memo with the FBI prior to the Committee’s vote. It is unclear whether there was new information contained in the version of memo that the White House received, whether law officials had second thoughts about the memo once the White House received it or whether there was another reason for the agencies’ objections after reviewing it.
The FBI declined to comment on the matter to ITN and requests for comment from Congressman Schiff’s office were not immediately returned.
There was some question as to whether the memo would need to be re-submitted to the White House once concerns were worked out with the FBI and DOJ.
Democrats felt it was necessary to release a rebuttal memo in order to “set out the relevant facts” and “expose the misleading character of the Republicans’ document.” The Republican memo was written by Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, who was addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, when Democrats’ memo was made public.