Memo Ping-Pong: FBI Objects, Nunes Responds, Schiff Cries Foul, Liberals Fund-Raise

BY SUSAN JONES  /  FAMILY SECURITY MATTERS

 The FBI released a statement Wednesday objecting to the public release of a memo that President Trump apparently has every intention of releasing.

The four-page memo, prepared by Republicans on the House intelligence committee, reportedly outlines FISA surveillance abuses by the FBI and Justice Department in connection with the Trump-Russia investigation.

According to the statement issued by FBI Director Christopher Wray:

The FBI takes seriously its obligations to the FISA Court and its compliance with procedures overseen by career professionals in the Department of Justice and the FBI. We are committed to working with the appropriate oversight entities to ensure the continuing integrity of the FISA process.

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. As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.

House intelligence committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) reponded to the FBI with a statement of his own, calling the FBI’s objections “spurious.”

Having stonewalled Congress’ demands for information for nearly a year, it’s no surprise to see the FBI and DOJ issue spurious objections to allowing the American people to see information related to surveillance abuses at these agencies.

The FBI is intimately familiar with ‘material omissions’ with respect to their presentations to both Congress and the courts, and they are welcome to make public, to the greatest extent possible, all the information they have on these abuses.

Regardless, it’s clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counter-intelligence investigation during an American political campaign. Once the truth gets out, we can begin taking steps to ensure our intelligence agencies and courts are never misused like this again. 

Democrats on the House intelligence committee, furious about the Republican vote to make the “misleading” memo public, are demanding a delay:

In a Wednesday evening letter to Nunes, Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the intelligence committee, complained that the memo sent to the White House “had been secretly altered” by Nunes and is not the same, word-for-word memo that committee Republicans voted to release.

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“This is deeply troubling, because it means that the Committee Majority transmitted to the White House an altered version of its classified document that is materially different than the version on which the Committee voted,” Schiff wrote. “The White House therefore has been reviewing a document since Monday night that the Committee never approved for public release.”

Schiff said because of the “material changes,” the committee must “immediately withdraw the document that it sent the White House.”

If Republicans still want to make their memo public, they must hold a new vote to release the modified document, Schiff insisted. “This can be done at the business meeting on Monday, February 4, 2015, when we will move, once again, to release the Minority’s responsive memorandum, which House Members have now had an opportunity to read.”

Schiff is upset that the Republican memo might be released ahead of the Democrat memo rebutting it point by point.

And finally, liberal activists at MoveOn.org sent a fund-raising letter to their members, asking them to sign a petition “pressuring Speaker Paul Ryan to remove Nunes from participating in the Russia investigation completely.”

“We can’t allow Rep. Nunes to continue spreading unfounded innuendo about the Russia probe to undermine its credibility,” the letter states — without a trace of irony.

Courtesy of CNSNews.com     

Susan brings to CNSNews.com a strong background in broadcast writing and editing. She joined CNSNews.com in April 1999, after working for 18 years as a television producer and news-writer in the Washington, D.C., Denver, and Greensboro, N.C., television markets. Susan holds a bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College and a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University.    

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