Fox News anchor Shepard Smith referred to a memo that allegedly outlines surveillance violations by the U.S. government as a “weapon of mass partisan distraction.”
“Many who’ve seen the memo say it’s misleading, distracting, and lacking context,” Smith said Thursday. “The memo itself is in the conservative discussion mix while the special counsel investigating Russian interference into our democracy is apparently about to interview the president of the United States while seeking to determine whether he’s colluded with the Russians or obstructed justice.”
“A memo can be a weapon of partisan mass distraction,” he added. “Especially at a pivotal moment in American democracy when it behooves the man in charge for supporters to believe the institutions can’t be trusted, the investigators are corrupt, and the news media are liars. Context matters.”
Shep Smith just totally shattered the Nunes memo narrative his colleagues Fox News have been pushing. pic.twitter.com/JAdkVjQOtA— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) January 25, 2018
The memo was organized by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and Smith pointed out that Nunes had participated in a meeting at the White House in 2017 right before announcing that he had information about incidental spying on Trump associates and afterwards was recused from his committee’s Russia probe.
“Remember, this began with Devin Nunes. The same Devin Nunes who last year made White House surveillance claims, staged a rush to the White House to purportedly share surveillance information with the administration, but actually took information from the administration and staged a report of it,” he said.
Republicans have urged for the memo to be publicly released and claim it contains evidence of violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The memo, which describes classified material from the FBI and Justice Department, reportedly says incorrect statements from “Trump dossier” author Christopher Steele about Trump associates’ connections to Russia were included in an approved application to put Carter Page, a Trump campaign official, under surveillance.
However, current and former law enforcement officials have said other information was also used to justify the surveillance application.
The Department of Justice on Thursday warned Nunes against releasing the memo concerning Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, calling it “extraordinarily reckless,” without giving the DOJ and FBI the opportunity to review it and to advise the committee “of the risk of harm to national security and to ongoing investigations that could come from public release.”
On the other side of the aisle, Democrats have brushed of the information in the memo and called it “talking points” that are leading a “false narrative.”
Democrats from the intelligence committee have composed their own memo to refute Republican’s claims.
