Panel votes to release rebuttal memo

Trump will have final say on whether public sees Democratic document

Washington — The House Intelligence Committee voted unanimously Monday to release a Democratic rebuttal to GOP accusations that the FBI misled a secret surveillance court — but whether the information actually becomes public will depend on President Trump, who has heaped scorn on the effort.

The vote means the political rancor roiling Congress is likely to continue, as accusations and counter-accusations fly about which party is misrepresenting or misusing sensitive intelligence surrounding the ongoing probe into whether any Trump associates coordinated with the Kremlin to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

The senior Democrat on the panel, Rep. Adam Schiff, Calif., announced the vote results, saying GOP attacks on the Justice Department and the FBI show desperation on the part of the president’s defenders.

“We think this will help inform the public of the many distortions and inaccuracies” in the GOP memo released last week, Schiff told reporters after Monday’s vote, adding he was concerned the Trump administration could still try to stymie the Democrats’ response.

“We want to make sure that the White House does not redact our memo for political purposes,’’ Schiff said. “There is a rising sense of panic clearly within the White House and as well on the Hill,’’ he said.

Before the vote, Trump charged in a tweet that Schiff “leaves closed committee hearings to illegally leak confidential information” and “must be stopped” suggesting the president may decide not to allow Schiff’s assertions to be made public.

The committee’s Republican members, including the chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., had previously signaled they would support eventually making the memo public.

The four-page GOP document released Friday accuses the FBI and the Justice Department of misusing information from a British ex-spy during the 2016 election to help justify their warrant application to surveil a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page.

The Democrats’ 10-page rebuttal, written by Schiff and staffers, suggests that the Republicans’ memo is misleading and relies on cherry-picked information intended to discredit the ongoing probe into possible links between Russian agents and the Trump campaign.

In his Monday tweet, the president accused “Little Adam Schiff” of being “one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington,” along with former FBI director James Comey; Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee; former CIA director John Brennan; and former director of national intelligence James Clapper. All had spoken out against releasing the GOP memo.