House Intelligence Republicans have voted on a party line to release their long-hyped controversial memo written by committee chair Devin Nunes while simultaneously blocking the release of a Democratic memo that was written in response to the GOP’s effort. The New York Times writes:
Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, apparently disregarding Justice Department warnings that their actions would be “extraordinarily reckless,” voted Monday evening to release a contentious secret memorandum said to accuse the department and the F.B.I. of misusing their authority to obtain a secret surveillance order on a former Trump campaign associate. [...]
Republicans invoked a power never before used by the secretive committee to effectively declassify the memo that they had compiled. Democrats called the three-and-a half-page document a dangerous effort to build a narrative to undercut the department’s ongoing Russia investigation, using cherry-picked facts assembled with little or no context.
Donald Trump now has five days to decide whether to release the memo to the public—can’t imagine what he’ll decide.
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, speaking to reporters on MSNBC following the vote, also revealed that Republicans on the House Intel panel had surreptitiously launched an investigation into both the FBI and the Justice Department. Here’s Schiff:
It was disclosed to the minority today for the first time that the majority has evidently opened an investigation of the FBI and an investigation of the Department of Justice. Under our committee rules, of course, that has to be the product of consultation with the minority, but we learned about that for the first time here today.
At its core, the memo reportedly takes issue with the process by which a FISA warrant was obtained in 2016 to surveil Carter Page, who had served as a Trump campaign adviser. But the memo is said to also take issue with yet another Trump appointee who has become of the focus of Trump’s ire: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing the Russia investigation for the Justice Department.
The memo is not limited to actions taken by the Obama administration, though. The New York Times reported on Sunday that the memo reveals that Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, a top Trump appointee, signed off an application to extend the surveillance of Mr. Page shortly after taking office last spring. The renewal shows that the Justice Department under Mr. Trump saw reason to believe that Mr. Page was acting as a Russian agent.
It’s worth keeping in mind here that the memo’s author, Nunes, so tainted his own credibility that he was forced to recuse himself from the House Intelligence Committee’s inquiry into the Russian interference in 2016. But after being cleared by the GOP-controlled House Ethics panel in December, he clearly believes he was in position to author a memo on sensitive intelligence he never actually viewed himself. What could go wrong?
Get ready for the GOP’s alternative narrative to go public.