![]() ![]() ![]() White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Saturday that Trump supported releasing the Democratic memo “in the interest of transparency” even though it was, she said, an attempt “to undercut the president politically.” “People need to stay out of Bob Mueller’s way.”Īlthough Trump quickly agreed to declassify the Republican memo, he initially blocked the Democratic version by saying its contents were too sensitive, a delay that Democrats said was unwarranted.ĭemocrats negotiated with law enforcement officials to redact some details, only securing its release three weeks after the Republican document had roiled politics and dominated headlines. “This investigation needs to go on,” Schiff said. The memo says the bureau also previously had “opened sub-inquiries” into people “linked to the Trump campaign.” The names were redacted. Page already was on the FBI radar before Steele’s research surfaced, and was interviewed by agents in March 2016, the same month Trump named him as a foreign policy aide. The Democratic memo also makes a broader case for supporting the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. Schiff, D-Calif., said his party’s review “failed to uncover any evidence of illegal, unethical, or unprofessional behavior by law enforcement.” Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House committee, said in a statement. The Democratic memo “should put to rest any concerns that the American people might have,” Rep. ![]() Although the details are largely redacted, the document says the information would contradict Page’s sworn testimony last year to the House intelligence committee. Nearly a year of eavesdropping on Page led to “valuable intelligence,” the Democratic memo says. In addition, they said some of the research was corroborated by “multiple independent sources” and the judges were informed that there were political motivations behind Steele’s work. Republicans had accused Justice and the FBI of including some opposition research in their classified application for a secret warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in October 2016, and of failing to tell the judges the opposition research had been funded by lawyers working for Hillary Clinton.īut Democrats say authorities only made “narrow use” of the information collected by former British spy Christopher Steele, which was later leaked to the media in a now-notorious dossier. 2, said the Department of Justice and the FBI “would have been remiss in their duty to protect the country” if they hadn’t investigated suspicious contacts between Russians and the former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page. The 10-page Democratic document, which was intended as a rebuttal to a four-page Republican memo released Feb. The dueling conclusions about the surveillance reflect the bitter partisan divide on the House committee and within Congress over how to view the broader criminal investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller into whether President Donald Trump or his aides assisted Russian meddling in the election or obstructed justice in the White House. law enforcement to start eavesdropping on a former Trump campaign adviser three weeks before the 2016 election, countering Republican charges that abuses tainted the process. WASHINGTON - The House intelligence committee released a Democratic memo Saturday that defends the decision by U.S.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |