WASHINGTON — House lawmakers are preparing for a possible vote Monday on whether to release a Democratic rebuttal to the controversial Republican memo accusing the FBI of surveillance abuses – even as President Donald Trump took aim at the senior Democrat leading the effort.
In a Monday morning tweet, Trump charged that the House Intelligence Committee’s ranking member, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., “leaves closed committee hearings to illegally leak confidential information” and “must be stopped.”
Trump’s tweet could give Republicans on the committee a reason to vote against releasing Schiff’s memo even though many have said they would support eventually making the memo public, and the panel’s chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has predicted the committee will approve its release.
The four-page GOP document released Friday accuses the FBI and Justice Department of misusing information from a British ex-spy during the 2016 election to help justify an application to surveil a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page.
The Democrats’ 10-page rebuttal, written by Schiff and staffers, suggests the Republicans’ memo is misleading and relies on cherry-picked information intended to discredit the ongoing probe into possible links between Russian agents and the Trump campaign.
In his Monday tweet, the president accused “Little Adam Schiff” of being “one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington,” along with former FBI Director James B. Comey, Senate Intelligence Committee vice chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., former CIA Director John Brennan, and former director of national intelligence James Clapper. All spoke out against releasing the GOP memo.
Schiff needs Republican support to carry his motion. If he secures enough votes, Trump will have five days to consider whether to block the memo’s release. If he blocks it, Nunes can ask the full House to override the president’s decision.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said last week he supports public release of the Democrats’ memo once it goes through the same process as the GOP memo was put through. The GOP memo was available to House members to read in a secure facility for eleven days before the panel voted to make it public; last Monday, the House Intelligence committee voted to make the Democrats’ memo available to all members to peruse in a secure facility as well.
Democrats have said they intend to let law enforcement officials redact any sensitive information in their document before making it public.
Also Monday, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., released a heavily redacted version of their memo urging the Justice Department to investigate whether the British ex-spy, Christopher Steele, lied to the FBI. Steele authored a now-famous dossier of allegations alleging ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin, a document at the center of Republicans’ complaints about the bureau.
The two senators also made clear they are probing whether officials at the State Department may have helped Steele. Nunes has indicated he is investigating this as well.
The document made public by Grassley on Monday indicates the Senate Judiciary Committee launched its inquiry in response to reports published by The Washington Post about Steele and the firm that hired him, Fusion GPS. It accuses Steele of misleading the FBI about his contact with reporters during the campaign.
Steele declined to comment. A lawyer for Fusion GPS did not immediately comment on the document.