Trump, FBI chief in public dispute
Showdown grows over release of GOP secret memo
WASHINGTON — The FBI clashed publicly with President Donald Trump for the first time on Wednesday, condemning a push by House Republicans to release a secret memo that purports to show how the bureau and the Justice Department abused their authority to obtain a warrant to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser.
“The FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it,” the bureau said in a statement, referring to the House Intelligence Committee. “As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”
The high-profile comment by the FBI thrust Christopher Wray, the bureau’s director, into a confrontation with the president, who abruptly fired his predecessor, James B. Comey. Wray had pleaded in recent days at the White House to keep the document private.
Trump wants to see the memo released, telling people close to him that he believes it makes the case that FBI and Justice Department officials acted inappropriately when they sought the highly classified warrant in October 2016 on the campaign adviser, Carter Page.
The president’s stance puts him at odds with much of his national security establishment. The Justice Department has warned repeatedly that the memo, prepared by Republican staff members on the House Intelligence Committee, is misleading and that its release would set a bad precedent for making government secrets public, including sensitive sources of information and methods of intelligence gathering. FBI officials have said privately that the president is prioritizing politics over national security and is putting the bureau’s reputation at risk.
A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the chairman of the committee, described the FBI objections as “spurious” and accused the two law enforcement agencies of making “material omissions” to Congress and the courts.
“It’s clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counterintelligence investigation during an American political campaign,” Nunes said in a statement. “Once the truth gets out, we can begin taking steps to ensure our intelligence agencies and courts are never misused like this again.”
People who have read the 3 1/2-page memo say it contends that officials from the FBI and the Justice Department were not forthcoming to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge in seeking the warrant. It says the officials relied on information assembled by a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, without adequately explaining to the judge that Democrats had financed the research.
Page, a former Moscow-based investment banker, had been on authorities’ radar for years. He had visited Moscow in July 2016 and was preparing to return there that December when investigators obtained the warrant in October 2016.
The memo has come to the forefront in a string of attempts by Trump’s allies to shift attention from the special counsel investigation into Russian election meddling and toward the actions of the investigators themselves. Republicans in Congress and in conservative media have asserted that the memo will show political bias in the early stages of the Russia inquiry.
The Republican-led Intelligence Committee voted along party lines Monday night to release it, invoking an obscure, never-before-used House rule to sidestep the usual backand-forth between lawmakers and the executive branch over the government’s most closely held secrets. Democrats on the committee objected and have prepared their own 10-page point-by-point rebuttal of the Republican document. The committee voted against releasing the Democrats’ memo publicly.
Under the rule, Trump has five days from the time of the vote to try to stop the release for national security reasons.
Democrats have called the Republican document a dangerous effort to build a narrative to undercut the department’s investigation into whether Trump’s associates colluded with Russians and whether Trump obstructed justice. They say it uses cherrypicked facts assembled with little or no context and could do lasting damage to faith in federal law enforcement.
Wray had strongly objected to the move to release the memo and was allowed to review it only Sunday, after Nunes relented. Wray made a last-ditch effort Monday, going to the White House with the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, to try to persuade the White House to stop the release of the memo. They spoke to John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, but were unsuccessful.
Rosenstein was also asked by the president last month whether he was “on my team,” according to an official briefed on the exchange. Rosenstein appeared surprised but responded affirmatively, according to CNN, which first reported the encounter.