Democrats rebut Trump FBI surveillance claims
Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee yesterday released a classified memo rebutting Republicans’ claims that the FBI carried out improper surveillance on the Trump campaign. The heavily redacted document claims the FBI did not rely on faulty evidence when securing a warrant to conduct surveillance on the former Trump campaign aide Carter Page – an allegation Republicans made in a memo the committee released last month.
Donald Trump blocked the release of the memo two weeks ago, citing security concerns. Democrats have since gone back and forth with the FBI over possible redactions, according to the New York Times.
Responding to the Democrats’ memo yesterday evening, Mr Trump said it was a “total political and legal BUST”. He added: “Just confirms all of the terrible things that were done. SO ILLEGAL!”
The version that the White House approved for release yesterday states that FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials “did not ‘abuse’ the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign”.
“In fact,” the memo continues, “DOJ and the FBI would have been remiss in their duty to protect the country had they not sought a FISA warrant and repeated renewals to conduct temporary surveillance of Carter Page, someone the FBI assessed to be an agent of the Russia government.” Mr Page has denied any wrongdoing in his work for the Trump campaign.
The memo also rebuts claims that the FBI relied exclusively on information in the so-called “Steele dossier” – an opposition research document funded by Mr Trump’s election rival – in launching its investigation of the Trump campaign. The memo claims the FBI only received the Steele dossier in September of 2016 – seven weeks after the FBI started its Trump team investigation.
Democrats on the committee also took issue with the inclusion of information about FBI agent Peter Strzok and attorney Lisa Page in the Republican memo. Mr Strzok worked on the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign, and both he and Ms Page worked briefly on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Republicans have made much of the fact that Mr Strzok and Ms Page exchanged pro-Clinton, anti-Trump sentiments via text message during their investigations. The Democrats’ memo, however, says the information is irrelevant, as neither one worked directly on the FISA application.
The White House said Mr Trump chose to release the memo in the interest of transparency, but took issue with several of the Democrat’s points. “This politically driven document fails to answer serious concerns raised by the Majority’s memorandum about the use of partisan opposition research from one candidate, loaded with uncorroborated allegations, as a basis to ask a court to approve surveillance of a former associate of another candidate, at the height of a presidential campaign,” Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
The release of the memo marks the latest salvo in a battle between Republican and Democrats on the Intelligence Committee over what information should be released to the public. Republicans said they wanted to release their memo to inform Americans of abuses by the FBI. Democrats claimed the memo was the GOP’s attempt to undermine ongoing FBI and DOJ investigations of the Trump campaign.
Announcing the memo’s release yesterday, ranking Democrat Adam Schiff tweeted: “Some time ago, Republicans on our committee released a declassified memo that omitted and distorted key facts in order to mislead the public and impugn the integrity of the FBI. We can now tell you what they left out.”