Washington has no evidence that the chemical agent sarin has ever been used by the Syrian government, Pentagon chief James Mattis has admitted. It did not stop him from still being concerned about Assad, though.

"We do not have evidence of it," the US Defense Secretary told journalists, referring to the alleged use of sarin nerve agent by Syrian government forces. He said the only information the US has been able to obtain so far, comes from "other groups on the ground, NGOs, fighters on the ground" and just "people who claim it's been used."

"We are looking for evidence of it," Mattis said. He then went on to accuse the Syrian government of a number of offenses and covert practices without substantiating his allegations with proof. He claimed that Syrian President Bashar Assad and his supporters "used denial and deceit to hide their outlaw actions," but the Pentagon chief did not provide any specific details.

Mattis also said that it's "clear" that Damascus used chlorine gas in the Syrian conflict, but as before, did not offer any evidence. Instead, he went on to say the US is now "even more concerned about the possibility of sarin use." The US Defense Secretary also warned that the Syrian government "would be ill-advised to go back to violating the chemical [weapons] convention," and spoke about the US "response."

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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.

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