As threatened, Donald Trump has taken steps to release the Trump–Devin Nunes collaboration that attacks the FBI for the benefit of Trump.
According to White House spokesman Raj Shah, the FBI memo has been declassified in full, without retractions or any other face-saving pretense, and sent back to the House for release.
Republicans have been attempting to pre-sell the memo as a serious issue with the FBI. And the memo is serious: a serious threat to procedures in the House, and a threat to the independence of the FBI and Justice Department.
Over the objections of FBI director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, both Trump appointees, over objections from Democrats who pointed out that the document Trump released is materially different from the one that House members voted on, over concerns that the document undercuts the FISA court and represents a threat to national security.
Trump is putting it out there. Because that was the plan all along.
“There was never any hesitation,” said one presidential adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to recount private talks with Trump. “The president was resolved on this. He was not going to be persuaded [otherwise]. He wanted it out.”
When even Devin Nunes is unable to lie sharply enough to deny that his staff created the note in collaboration with the White House … it was never hard to think that Trump was going to release a memo he had a hand in writing.