Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) fired back at Democrats after the Saturday release of their rebuttal to the House Intelligence Committee’s FISA abuse memo.
The committee chairman told an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference that Democrats’ memo does not contain “anything that actually rejects what was actually in our memo.”
Devin Nunes at CPAC explaining how incompetent the #SchiffMemo is. pic.twitter.com/zFJ9KIj5Nc
— The Columbia Bugle ?? (@ColumbiaBugle) February 24, 2018
Democrats’ memo countered the document spearheaded by Nunes and released by the House Intelligence Committee earlier this month, which detailed the FBI’s use of the Steele dossier to obtain a surveillance warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
The Democrat rebuttal memo, seen below, claims that “FBI and DOJ officials did not ‘abuse’ the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign.”
Nunes said Republicans wanted the release of Democrats’ memo for the sake of transparency.
“We actually wanted this out. So this has been held up for over two weeks. The FBI and DOJ has right away told the Democrats what was wrong with their memo–or their response to our memo–and they waited for two weeks before they actually did the redactions that were necessary to get this out.”
He accused Democrats or trying to “cover-up” government abuse and blasted them for “personal attacks” against himself and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), who chairs the House Oversight Committee.
“We wanted it out. We want it out because we think it is clear evidence that the Democrats are not only trying to cover this up, but they’re also colluding with parts of the government to help cover this up.
“And I think, as you read it, you will see personal attacks on myself, personal attacks on Chairman Gowdy, with a lot of really interesting things that sound really bad like a lot that has been happening with this Russia investigation over the course of the last year.”
Nunes concluded: “But what you’re not gonna see is anything that actually rejects what was actually in our memo.”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee and the main force behind the Democrat memo, wrote on Twitter that the GOP memo “omitted and distorted key facts” regarding the FBI’s surveillance of Page.
Some time ago, Republicans on our committee released a declassified memo that omitted and distorted key facts in order to mislead the public and impugn the integrity of the FBI.
We can now tell you what they left out: https://t.co/jeVCVTBUBZ
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) February 24, 2018
Other Democratic lawmakers reacted to the Schiff memo by asserting that it vindicated the FBI, Justice Department, and the Steele dossier while displaying President Trump and Republicans as culpable.
Dem House Intelligence Committee memo does many things:
-Destroys false claim by Nunes that FISA process was abused
-Shows @realDonaldTrump is in no way vindicated
-Lays out ample probable cause to surveil Carter Page
-Shows Steele Dossier corroborated
-Shows FBI & DOJ know a lot https://t.co/dWGWCwlOqV— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) February 24, 2018
The release of the House Intelligence Committee Democrats’ memo helps set the record straight on Republicans’ attempts to obstruct the investigation into the Trump-Russia scandal.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) February 24, 2018
I’m pleased the Schiff memo is finally being made available for the public to review. It will help Americans understand why the Nunes memo was wrong.
— Senator Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) February 24, 2018
Having read the original, classified version of the Schiff memo, I found that the parts that have since been redacted to protect sources and methods only made the case stronger. This is a thorough, detailed rebuttal to the Nunes memo that also exposes its political motivations.
— Raja Krishnamoorthi (@CongressmanRaja) February 24, 2018
The Democratic memo makes clear that Chairman Nunes cherry-picked and distorted information from sensitive intelligence to sow discord and undermine our nation’s premier law enforcement agency – the @FBI. 1/3
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) February 24, 2018
Democrat’s rebuttal appeared to not dispute the claim from the GOP memo that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe “testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information,” which the White House noted in a statement.
the white house’s statement alongside the dem memo release: “while the democrats’ memorandum attempts to undercut the president politically, the president supported its release in the interest of transparency.” pic.twitter.com/JXoV9dgMnx
— kelly cohen (@politiCOHEN_) February 24, 2018
“As the Majority’s memorandum stated, the FISA judge was never informed that Hillary Clinton and the DNC funded the dossier that was a basis for the Department of Justice’s FISA application,” the White House statement read.
“In addition, the Minority’s memo fails to even address the fact that the Deputy FBI Director told the Committee that had it not been for the dossier, no surveillance order would have been sought.”
President Trump also responded to the memo’s release.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/967538684789739520
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/967539664692350977
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