The missing memo
And so Americans are left to wait for a Democratic response to the Republicans’ memo that alleged the FBI abused its authority in applying for reauthorization of court permission to monitor the communications of Carter Page, the former campaign adviser to Donald Trump who was suspected of being an agent of Russia.
There is no escaping the impression that President Trump is applying a double standard to the dueling accounts from the House Intelligence Committee.
In the case of the Republicans’ memo, Trump brushed aside publicly expressed “grave concerns” from the FBI about its “material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.” Trump was caught on microphone after his State of the Union address that he would “100 percent” release the memo. The day after its release, Trump claimed on Twitter that it “totally vindicates me.”
Actually, the memo advanced by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare, vindicated neither Trump nor the popular GOP talking point that the Russia investigation was prompted by the so-called Steele dossier that was paid for by Democrats. As the Nunes memo itself acknowledged, the investigation had begun months before the dossier was included in the application for a warrant to surveil Page.
The Trump White House has maintained that the Democrats’ 10-page memo that supposedly refutes some of the Nunes memo’s claims about FBI misconduct includes classified information that would expose the sources and methods of U.S. intelligence gathering. Trump accused the Democrats of intentionally drafting a “very political and long” rebuttal that would give the president no choice but to block its release. The White House counsel has said the president is inclined to release the document but only if the sensitive passages are redacted.
Trump’s concerns about the national security implications of the Democrats’ response would have more credibility if he had shown similar deference to the FBI and Justice Department alarms about the Nunes memo — or, better yet, if the two memos had been released simultaneously. This delay game smells of politics.