(L
to R) Ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and chairman Rep.
Devin Nunes (R-CA).
Drew Angerer/Getty
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Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House
Intelligence Committee, attacked the release of a controversial
memo from Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican chair of the
committee.
The memo purports to show an overreach by the
Department of Justice in obtaining authorization to
surveil Carter Page, a former Trump campaign aide, as part
of the Russia investigation.
Schiff said that the memo was simply an attempt to
"circle the wagons around the White House and insulate the
President."
Schiff also said that the memo left out key details
from the DOJ's investigation and that it was an attempt to
discredit the intelligence agencies.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence
Committee, blasted
the release of a memo from Rep. Devin Nunes, the
Republican chairman of the committee.
The memo purports to show abuses by the Department of
Justice (DOJ) in obtaining authorization to surveil Carter Page,
a former campaign aide to President Donald Trump, as part of
the investigation into ties between Trump's campaign and Russian
officials.
Schiff said that the memo was a partisan attempt to
undermine the investigation in an attempt to protect Trump and
other members of the campaign and did not include key information
from the DOJ and FBI.
"The sole purpose of the Republican document is to circle
the wagons around the White House and insulate the President,"
Schiff said in a statement after the memo's release. "Tellingly,
when asked whether the Republican staff who wrote the memo had
coordinated its drafting with the White House, the Chairman
refused to answer."
The FBI and DOJ both opposed the release of the memo
because the agencies say that the memo leaves out key facts and
misinterprets findings from the investigation.
"As the DOJ emphasized to Chairman Nunes, the
decision to employ an obscure and never
before used House rule to release classified
information without DOJ and FBI
vetting was 'extraordinarily reckless'," Schiff said.
"The selective release and politicization of classified
information sets a terrible precedent and will do long-term
damage to the Intelligence Community and our law enforcement
agencies."
The memo attempts to undermine the FBI and DOJ's
surveillance of Page by alleging that surveillance powers were
sought using the controversial dossier complied by former British
intelligence agent Christopher Steele.
The memo goes on to point out that Steele received funding
that was linked to the Democratic National Committee and these
partisan ties were not included in the DOJ's request for
surveillance.
But Schiff said in his statement that the memo's contents
do not reflect the fact that the FBI's investigation into the
Trump campaign's ties with Russia was triggered not by Page or
the dossier but rather by another Trump campaign
volunteer, George Papadopoulos. From Schiff's
response:
"The authors of the GOP memo would like the country to
believe that the investigation began with Christopher Steele and
the dossier, and if they can just discredit Mr. Steele, they can
make the whole investigation go away regardless of the
Russians’ interference in our election or the role
of the Trump campaign in that interference. This ignores the
inconvenient fact that the investigation did not begin with, or
arise from Christopher Steele or the dossier, and that
the investigation would persist on the basis of wholly
independent evidence had Christopher Steele never entered the
picture."
In the end, Schiff said the memo reflects poorly not only
on Nunes but also Republican leadership for endorsing the release
of the memo.
"It is a terrible lapse in leadership that Speaker Ryan
failed to intervene and prevent the abuse of classified materials
in this way," Schiff said. "It is tragic, if all too
predictable, that this President would allow the release of the
memo despite FBI and DOJ’s expressions of ‘grave concerns about
material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the
[Republicans'] memo's accuracy.'"
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