Trump clears way for memo’s release
Some aides fear FBI director could resign in protest
WASHINGTON — The White House signaled on Thursday that President Donald Trump would allow a secret memo written by Republican congressional aides to be made public, despite fears from some in the West Wing that it could prompt the resignation of the FBI director, Christopher Wray, and lead to another crisis for the administration.
Trump, who had a brief window to block the memo’s disclosure on national security grounds, was expected to tell Congress on Friday that he had no objections and would probably not request that any of its substance be redacted, according to a senior administration official.
The president’s eager-
ness to see the document made public pitted him against his own top national security officials, who have warned that it omits crucial context and that its release would jeopardize sensitive government information. The memo is said to accuse federal law enforcement officials of abusing their authorities in seeking court permission to surveil a former Trump campaign adviser.
White House aides worked on Thursday to accommodate concerns raised by Wray as well as Daniel Coats, the director of national intelligence. It was unclear what changes, if any, were being made before the document was transmitted back to the House. White House officials cautioned that the situation remained fluid.
Once Trump’s decision is formally conveyed to Congress, the House Intelligence Committee, whose leaders have pushed for its release, can make the document public. Exactly how and when that would happen was not immediately clear. Republicans were relying on a never-before-used House rule and did not telegraph their plans.
Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had already tried unsuccessfully this week to persuade the White House to stop the release of the memo, and Thomas O’Connor, the president of the FBI Agents Association, issued a statement on Thursday supporting Wray. It thanked the director for “standing shoulder to shoulder with the men and women of the FBI” and came a day after the bureau itself strongly condemned the push for the memo’s release.
Despite the White House worries about his unhappiness at the prospect of the document’s release, Wray, who has kept a relatively low profile since taking over the FBI in August, was unlikely to resign over this issue, people familiar with his thinking said.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, speaking to reporters at the Republicans’ annual policy retreat in West Virginia on Thursday, rejected criticisms of the memo and offered a full-throated defense of the document.
“This memo is not an indictment of the FBI, of the Department of Justice. It does not impugn the Mueller investigation or the deputy attorney general,” he said, referring to Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating the Russian election meddling and whether Trump obstructed justice.
Instead, Ryan said, the memo was the product of Congress employing oversight of the executive branch.
Trump has told the people close to him that he believes the memo, which the White House confirmed he had read, makes the case that law enforcement officials acted inappropriately and with bias in the early days of the Russia investigation. He has spent less time talking about it in the White House than some of his supporters have, however.
But people close to Trump who have been told of the memo’s contents, both inside and outside the White House, conceded that the document was not likely to deliver on those expectations.
Republicans who have seen the 3½-page memo say it makes a case that political bias infected a key action in the early stages of the Russia investigation. It contends that officials from the FBI and Justice Department may have misled a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge when they sought a warrant to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page, in October 2016.
The memo says the officials relied in part on information handed over by a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, without adequately explaining to the judge that the research was paid for by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, according to people who have read the document. And it says the material from Steele was not vetted.
Law enforcement officials described Steele not as an investigator funded by Democrats but as a reliable source to the bureau who had provided helpful information about corruption in FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, according to two people familiar with the warrant application.