The House Intelligence Committee on Monday voted along party lines to publicly release a secret GOP-drafted memo on alleged surveillance abuses targeting the Trump campaign, according to the panel’s top Democrat.
The controversial document could be released if the president does not object within five days. If the president does object, the question could come before the full House—though Trump reportedly supports the effort. Texas congressman Mike Conaway told reporters late Monday that the GOP-drafted memo does not need to be redacted.
Democrats describe the memo as a misleading characterization of highly classified intelligence that is meant to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller, whose investigation includes any potential links between the Kremlin and the Trump team. Committee Democrats’ effort to publicly release a counter-memo rebutting what they describe as “factual inaccuracies” in the GOP memo failed on Monday, much to their frustration.
“When I moved to have the minority memo released in the interest of full transparency, [the majority] evidently took the view that full transparency means only one side gets it and not the other,” Schiff told reporters, standing alongside eight other committee Democrats.
Republicans agreed Monday to make Democrats’ memo available for all House members to view in a classified setting. They said they would be open to a future vote on publicly releasing the document.
“When the Democratic memo has gone through the same process [as the GOP memo] then it should have the same day in court,” Florida congressman Tom Rooney told reporters. “It was about a week for the House to be able to read it, and then we’ll vote to release it down the road.”
Schiff said that he also moved during the committee meeting Monday that the FBI and DOJ brief the entire House behind closed doors on the documents before their public release, but Republicans objected.
“Why on earth would you not want to give the FBI, the Department of Justice, the opportunity to come in and say, you’re right, you’re wrong, or here’s what really happened?” he told reporters. “They denied the bureau and the department that opportunity.”
He added that FBI director Christopher Wray expressed “strong interest” in briefing the intelligence panel before the memo’s public release. Wray reportedly went to view the memo on Sunday.
“The review did not satisfy, I think, either the bureau’s or [DOJ’s] concerns,” Schiff said. “The FBI asked for the opportunity to come before the committee and express those concerns, but that request was denied by the chairman today.”
The GOP memo effort has been met with some resistance from the Justice Department. Assistant attorney general Stephen Boyd told House intelligence chairman Devin Nunes in a letter last week that it would be “extraordinarily reckless” to publicly release the memo without DOJ and FBI review.
Schiff said that the GOP majority also disclosed Monday that they are investigating the FBI and Justice Department, though Conaway disputed that characterization to reporters.
The transcript of the day’s meeting, Schiff said, would be made available to the public.
Reports indicate that the memo addresses whether federal officials fully informed a judge about their use of information from ex-spy Christopher Steele, whose 2016 research was partially financed by the Democrats, in obtaining a warrant to surveil former Trump adviser Carter Page. The memo also says that deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein approved an application to extend surveillance of Page, according to the New York Times.
