The tortured narrative laid out in the Nunes Memo makes a key claim to back up the allegation that the Steele Dossier, and only the Steele Dossier, served as the basis for the initial FISA court warrant on Carter Page:
“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”, the memo claims.
That claim, if true, would certainly lend credence to the “scandal” the Republicans are screaming about. Problem is, it’s probably not true and if it’s not true, the whole premise of the Nunes Memo falls apart.
I’m not a legal scholar, but, didn’t the Republicans just declassify Andrew McCabe’s testimony, at least the part pertaining explicitly to the claims made in their memo? If so, why can’t McCabe, as a newly minted private citizen, repeat exactly what he said before the House Intelligence Committee? I’ll bet the Senate Intelligence Committee would be interested...not to mention every media outlet between here and Moscow.