Josh Delk
The HillFri, 02 Feb 2018 05:13 UTC
© Zach Gibson/Getty Images/KJN
A Democratic memo written to counter a Republican document released Friday claims that the government presented additional evidence that would undercut the GOP conclusion, according to
The New York Times.
Democrats have claimed key information was omitted in the Republican document, which was based on classified documents that have not been released. Republicans say in their now-public memo that the FBI did not reveal that information underlying a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) request came from a politically motivated source.
The Democratic countermemo reportedly claims that the FBI did reveal the source of the information was politically motivated, according to two
Times sources.
Officials may not have told the FISA court that the information was partially funded by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee, the
Times reported.
According to the GOP memo, the FISA application to spy on former Trump aide Carter Page was based in part on a dossier tying
President Trump to Russia compiled by former British spy Michael Steele, whose opposition research was partially funded by Democrats.
The House Intelligence Committee memo says that the Steele dossier "formed an essential part" of the FBI and Justice Department-approved surveillance. Democrats claim that additional evidence led to the warrants and the Steele dossier provided only a small part of the FBI's argument.
Democrats on the Intelligence committee have urged the release of their memo, which they say provides key context to the information in the Republican-written memo.Republicans on the committee voted against the release of the Democrats' countermemo, but
the White House on Friday signaled Trump is open to the possibility if it means [if oversight requests are consistent with]
"applicable standards."
Comment: According to
The Daily Wire's article "Full of Schiff...":
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff (CA) accused Republicans of altering a GOP memo, that allegedly shows FBI surveillance abuses, before they sent the memo to the White House without getting the changes approved by the committee.
Schiff claimed that Republicans had "secretly altered" the memo as he continued to claim that the memo had "profound distortions and inaccuracies" - despite the fact that multiple senior-level FBI officials who reviewed the memo within the last two days "could not point to any factual inaccuracies."
There's just one problem with Schiff's story: It appears to be overblown, deceptive, and a desperate attempt to stop the memo from going public.
Byron York, a columnist for the Washington Examiner, spoke with sources on the committee who gave insight into the changes that were supposedly made to the memo. York tweeted: "Just talked with House Intel source. Said total changes to memo were: A) Unknown number of 'grammatical and clarifying' fixes. B) One change requested by FBI due to sources & methods concerns. C) One two-word change requested by Democrats for accuracy."
York continued to throw water on Schiff's alarmism, tweeting: "On FBI-requested change to House Intel memo, remember that Nunes showed memo to Wray on Sunday, to two FBI officials on Monday, and WH showed to five more FBI officials on Tuesday. Not shocking that change would be made to address FBI concerns."
Schiff accused Nunes of acting for "partisan political purposes" and warned that he "crossed a dangerous line" and was risking an all-out "constitutional crisis and another Saturday Night Massacre." Schiff's ridiculous allegations are the height of hypocrisy for the Democratic Party.
The Dems keep looking more and more dumb.