Security concerns, Trump cites why memo can't be 'declassified'

Citing national security concerns, the White House on Friday formally notified the House intelligence committee that President Donald Trump is “unable” to declassify a memo drafted by Democrats that counters GOP allegations about abuse of government surveillance powers in the FBI’s Russia probe.

White House counsel Don McGahn said in a letter to the committee that the memo contains “numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages” and asked the intelligence panel to revise the memo with the help of the Justice Department. He said Trump is still “inclined” to release the memo in the interest of transparency if revisions are made.

The president’s rejection of the Democratic memo is in contrast to his enthusiastic embrace of releasing the Republican document, which he pledged before reading to make public. The president declassified the document last week, allowing its publication in full over the objections of the Justice Department.

The top Democrat on the intelligence panel, California Rep. Adam Schiff, criticized Trump for treating the two documents differently, saying the president is now seeking revisions by the same committee that produced the original Republican memo. Still, Schiff said, Democrats “look forward to conferring with the agencies to determine how we can properly inform the American people about the misleading attack on law enforcement by the GOP.”

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi was less measured, saying the White House move is “part of a dangerous and desperate pattern of cover-up on the part of the president.” California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and has read the classified information both memos are based on, tweeted that Trump’s blocking the memo is “hypocrisy at its worst.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., who produced the GOP memo, encouraged Democrats to accept the Justice Department’s recommendations and “make the appropriate technical changes and redactions.”