Donald Trump isn’t going to release the memo … he’s going to let his henchman have that honor. CBS’s Major Garrett provided a preview of Trump’s plan to put an illusion of distance between himself and this disaster.
White House will not "release" memo but send it back to committee for it to release on its timetable
Rather than handing out copies at the White House door, Trump will apply token “redactions” to the memo and hand it back to Devin Nunes. So the release of the memo will then be in the hands of the man who already orchestrated two previous attempts to create a false narrative about intelligence agency malfeasance. To assist with this, Fox News is reporting that Trump will declassify the contents of the memo. Of course, Fox is also reporting that Trump’s redactions have made the FBI happy with the planned release.
Sources said the edited version was shown to five FBI officials at the White House on Tuesday afternoon. Sources said the officials were satisfied that the edited memo addressed concerns they had about the earlier version they reviewed on Monday.
Which might sound somewhat reassuring—if that viewing hadn’t come a full day before the FBI released an extraordinary unsigned statement stating that the agency has “grave concerns about material omissions.” Material omissions can’t be solved by redactions, unless what’s being redacted is the whole memo. It’s clear that exactly none of the concerns of the FBI have been addressed, since the problem with the memo isn’t as much what’s in it, but what’s not—the supporting information and background that shows that Nunes is grossly distorting the truth about the FISA process.
But the fact that Trump is planning a hand off to Nunes isn’t the most exciting memo news of the day.
The most unbelievable part of this statement is the implication that Trump read a document that’s nearly four pages in length and doesn’t include any charts, maps or stick figure diagrams. However, the memo does have Trump very excited.
President Donald Trump continues to tell his associates he believes the highly controversial Republican memo alleging the FBI abused its surveillance tools could help discredit the Russia investigation, multiple sources familiar with White House discussions said.
In an investigation where a lot of the focus has been on obstruction, Trump is cheered that his latest efforts at obstruction look particularly … obstructy.
Trump is so happy about this, he’s getting on the phone to tell people how happy he is to take down the FBI and allow him to roll the justice system.
In recent phone calls, Trump has told friends he believes the memo would expose bias within the agency's top ranks and make it easier for him to argue the Russia investigations are prejudiced against him, according to two sources.
The thing that’s always angered Trump the most wasn’t the fact that someone was investigating his campaign’s connection to Russia, it’s the whole idea that the Justice Department is supposed to be independent of the White House. The memo isn’t just a play to crush the Russia investigation, but to solve that pesky problem of an FBI that doesn’t view itself as Trump’s personal instrument for bringing sweet vengeance and persecution to his enemies.
White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah denied that the purpose of releasing the memo was to undermine the Mueller probe and insisted that the White House is simply playing their role in a process initiated by Congress.
Why? Why even make such a statement? Trump isn’t attempting to hide the purpose of the memo or his motive in foisting it on the public.
The memo will go back to Devin Nunes and the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee. In theory, the committee can only release the information when the House is in session. With a pro forma session scheduled for Friday afternoon, that’s likely to be the point where Nunes releases the memo.
