FBI, Trump at odds over memo
TOP SECRET: DOCUMENT SHOWS KNIVES OUT FOR PRESIDENT Fight over probes into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections.
The FBI had “grave concerns” about the accuracy of a top-secret House intelligence committee memo alleging anti-Trump bias within the Justice Department, challenging President Donald Trump’s pledge to release it.
But a few hours after the rare public rebuke by the US law enforcement agency, a Trump administration official said the memo was likely to be released.
“The FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it,” the FBI said in a statement. “As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”
The FBI declined to say if director Christopher Wray, who viewed the memo during the weekend, approved the statement. Trump named Wray to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation after firing director James Comey last May.
The memo has become a lightning rod in a fight over investigations into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US election and possible collusion by Trump’s campaign, which Russia and Trump have both denied.
Justice Department officials have said releasing the memo could jeopardise classified information.
Representative Devin Nunes, the intelligence committee’s Republican chairperson who commissioned the document, dismissed the FBI and Justice Department objections to its release as “spurious”.
Although White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump had not yet read the document, the president told lawmakers after his State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday night that there was a “100%” chance the memo would be released.
A White House official said the fourpage document was delivered to the White House on Monday after the committee voted to release it. Administration lawyers were working against a Friday deadline to determine if any of it should be redacted.
Late on Wednesday, Representative Adam Schiff of the intelligence committee said he had discovered Nunes had sent a version of the memo to the White House that was “materially altered” and not what was approved for release.
A ‘100%’ chance the memo would be released