John Thune in December
2017
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Images
Top Senate Republican John Thune has called on House
Republicans to heed the warning issued by the FBI on the
release of the controversial and allegedly misleading memo
authored by GOP Rep. Devin Nunes.
The FBI had issued a rare statement on the memo, citing
"grave concerns" about its accuracy.
Democrats in both the House and the Senate have called
for immediate action to stop Nunes, and House Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi has called for Nunes to be removed from his post
on the House Intelligence Committee.
President Donald Trump has reportedly read the memo,
and supports its release.
A top Senate Republican has joined Democrats, national security
experts, and some fellow Republicans in
urging caution ahead of the release of a memo authored by
House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, and said
advocates of the memo's release should heed the warning issued by
the FBI on Wednesday.
Sen. John Thune, who is the third most highly ranked Republican
in the Senate, framed the release of the controversial memo,
which alleges partisan bias and misconduct on the part of the
Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI with regard to
surveillance of President Donald Trump's former campaign staff
after he took office, as a national security matter.
"They need to pay careful attention to what our folks who protect
us have to say about what this, you know, how this bears on our
national security," Thune told reporters on Thursday.
Thune was referring to a
statement issued by the FBI on the memo on Wednesday.
"With regard to the House Intelligence Committee's memorandum,
the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo
the day before the committee voted to release it," the statement
read. "As expressed during our initial review, we have grave
concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally
impact the memo’s accuracy."
The FBI statement is unusual because the bureau rarely
issues public statements of this sort.
Thune said it's crucial for the Senate Intelligence
Committee's chairman, Sen. Richard Burr, to look over the memo
before it is released,
according to Politico.
"It would be helpful," Thune said. "I think that Senator Burr
would like to see it and hasn't been able to yet."
The Senate Intelligence Committee had asked that the memo
also be sent to them for review, but House Republicans rebuffed
this request.
Backlash and partisan battles across Capitol Hill
The memo, which was drafted by Nunes and approved by the
House Intelligence Committee for release after a party-line vote
earlier this week, contains information that the FBI and
Democrats on the committee say needs to be verified. The
committee's Democrats, led by Rep. Adam Schiff, have drafted an
alternate memo that claims to corroborate the FBI's statement and
lays out how the Nunes memo omits facts and distorts the actions
of the agencies it mentions.
Rep.
Schiff speaks to reporters about the appointment of a Special
Counsel in the Russia investigations on Capitol Hill in
Washington
Thomson
Reuters
"This represents another effort to distract from the Russia
probe and undermine the Special Counsel," Schiff
said last week, referring to the Russia investigation led by
special counsel Robert Mueller that is under the purview of the
DOJ. "With this latest gambit, however, the Majority seeks to
selectively and misleadingly characterize classified information
in an effort to protect the President at any cost."
But the Democrats' memo was blocked from release by
Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee through another
party line vote.
Trump was sent the memo for review after it was approved for
release, and the president reportedly read the memo on Thursday,
according to The Washington Post. Trump has previously said
that he is committed to releasing it because he believes it will
discredit the Russia investigation. But Schiff claims that
the memo Trump read had been
altered by Nunes — and consequentially was not the version
that was approved for release.
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