Trump says memo ‘totally vindicates’ him

He cites the disputed document to discredit the Russia inquiry.

WASHINGTON — President Trump, claiming vindication, made plain on Saturday that he would use a Republican memo as a political cudgel against the Russia investigation, though legal experts disputed his take and some Republicans urged an end to party attacks on the special counsel’s inquiry.

“This memo totally vindicates ‘Trump’ in probe,” the president tweeted.

He called the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, his campaign’s potential role and whether his own actions may have obstructed justice a “Russian Witch Hunt.” In the evening from his Mar-aLago estate in Florida, Trump wrote three additional tweets, including two quoting from a supportive Wall Street Journal editorial.

The disputed four-page memo, which was written by House Republicans and released Friday after Trump ordered it declassified, focuses on the FBI’s secret surveillance of a relatively obscure Trump campaign associate, Carter Page, shortly after he’d left his position as a foreign policy advisor amid questions about his Russian contacts.

Trump and House Republicans say the memo reveals abusive tactics by the FBI, for using Democraticfunded opposition research as part of its application for a surveillance warrant in October 2016 without disclosing that political link to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Democrats and news reports dispute that, saying the judge was told of a political link. In any case, the warrant was renewed three times, suggesting the court saw merit in eavesdropping on Page, who has been investigated as a suspected Russian agent as far back as 2013.

Democrats have written their own still-classified memo as a rebuttal, but it remains under wraps, blocked by House Republicans.

The furor over the memo has spawned speculation that Trump would use it to justify firing officials at the center of the investigation, notably Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein, a Trump appointee who oversees the inquiry led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

Legal experts said the memo did little to undercut the investigation.

“Even on the best possible reading of the memo, I don’t see how you get to the end game of discrediting the warrant and everything that follows,” said Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor.