Memo on FBI ‘abuse of power’ released
What’s happening in our country is a disgrace, Trump says
The US Congress released a Republican memo yesterday alleging bias in FBI investigations into his presidential campaign moments after US President Donald Trump authorised the explosive move.
“What’s happening in our country is a disgrace,” Trump said, announcing that he had declassified the memo drafted by Republican Congressman and former Trump transition team official Devin Nunes. “A lot of people should be ashamed,” Trump added.
White House sources said that despite a warning from Trump-appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray, whose future is now uncertain, Trump authorised the memo’s release “in full” with no redactions.
Trump’s decision rocked Washington, intensifying a fight that has raised questions about the political independence of federal prosecutors and whether the president is trying to obstruct justice. Trump’s critics allege the memo is designed to undercut special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of his campaign’s ties with Russia, which US intelligence agencies unanimously agree tried to tilt the election in his favour.
The memo is believed to allege that an investigation into Trump campaign officials started with allegations from a Democrat-funded research.
Those allegations will heap pressure on the upper echelons of the FBI and Justice Department.
US President Donald Trump yesterday approved the release of a classified Republican memo that alleges bias against him at the FBI and Justice Department, in an extraordinary showdown with senior law enforcement officials over the probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Ignoring the urgings of the FBI earlier this week, Trump declassified the memo and sent it to Congress. The Republican president told reporters that the contents of the document tell a disgraceful story and that “a lot of people should be ashamed.” The four-page memo was released shortly afterwards by the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee that had drafted it.
Earlier yesterday, Trump accused the country’s top law enforcement officers — some of whom he appointed himself — of politicising investigations in favour of Democrats and against his fellow Republicans.
‘Favouring democrats’
“The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicised the sacred investigative process in favour of Democrats and against Republicans — something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago,” Trump wrote on Twitter. The president praised “rank and file” FBI employees.
His latest salvo was sure to worsen the president’s frayed relations with agencies that are supposed to be politically independent.
James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama, said Trump’s attack on the FBI and Justice Department was the “pot calling the kettle black.” Republican efforts to release selective portions of classified information in the memo was a “blatant” political act, Clapper told CNN.
Seeking to defuse the conflict, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan backed the release of a Democratic counterpoint memo if the Republican document were made public. Ryan can block either but has supported releasing the Republican memo.
Counter-memo
Democrats say their counter-memo restores context and information left out of the Republican version. Republicans have resisted releasing that document, Ryan’s office said yesterday he backed making the Democrats’ rebuttal public if it does not reveal intelligence gathering sources or methods.
Two days ago, in a rare public rebuke of the president and Republicans, the FBI said it had “grave concerns about material omissions of fact” in the memo and it should not be made public.
The document has become a flashpoint in a battle between Republicans and Democrats over Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s criminal probe into possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia to sway the 2016 presidential election, and any actions to impede the investigation.
The memo was commissioned by the Republican chairman of the House intelligence panel, Devin Nunes. It purports to show that the FBI and Justice Department misled a US court in seeking to extend electronic surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.