Story from BBC
FBI has grave concerns about the material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy," the FBI said in a statement.
FBI has grave concerns about the material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy," the FBI said in a statement.
The White House has reportedly indicated that it could be published on Thursday.
Democrats claim the memo is an attempt to discredit the FBI-led Russia probe.
The White House has to approve the top-secret memo's release.
"It
will be released here pretty quick, I think, and the whole world can
see it," White House chief of staff John Kelly said during an interview
with Fox News Radio on Wednesday.
Hours later, the FBI issued a
rare statement saying that it had had "limited opportunity" to review
the document before the House Intelligence committee voted to release it
on Monday.
"We are committed to working with the appropriate
oversight entities to ensure the continuing integrity of the FISA
(Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) process," the FBI statement
added.
On Wednesday night Democrats on the committee accused the
Republicans of secretly altering the memo before giving it to the White
House.
Representative Adam Schiff said the document had "material
changes", meaning it was not the same as the one that had been voted on.
He said it should be withdrawn and re-reviewed prior to any possible
public release.
The four-page memo, which was compiled by staffers for the House
Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, claims that the Department
of Justice abused the surveillance programme known as FISA to unfairly
target a member of the Trump campaign.
According to lawmakers who
have reviewed it, the document purports to show that the agency obtained
a warrant to spy on a Trump campaign aide after submitting as evidence
the unproven "Russian dossier".
That dossier was compiled by
former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele with money financed
in part from the Hillary Clinton campaign.
The committee voted to release the memo earlier this week, and Mr Trump
has until the weekend to decide whether to de-classify the information
for public release.
Mr Trump was heard following his State of the Union speech on Tuesday
night telling a Republican lawmaker that he is "100%" for releasing the
document, but on Wednesday White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told
CNN "there's always a chance" that it will not be released.
But Mr
Kelly was less equivocal, telling Fox News on Wednesday morning that Mr
Trump "wants everything out so the American people can make up their
own minds and if there's people to be held accountable, then so be it".
Before the FBI statement on Wednesday, the Department of Justice had
already said it would be "extraordinary reckless" to release the
document.
Democrats, whose efforts to release a competing memo
were blocked by the committee, claim that Mr Nunes cherry-picked highly
classified information that they say could jeopardise national security.
They
argue the memo is an effort to embarrass the FBI and discredit the
investigation, led by special counsel Robert Mueller, into alleged
Russian meddling and possible obstruction of justice by members of the
Trump administration.
But Trump officials say the memo proves his claim that he has been treated unfairly by the FBI.
After firing FBI director James Comey, Mr Trump reportedly asked his
temporary replacement Andrew McCabe how he had voted in the 2016
presidential election.
Mr McCabe, who briefly served as acting agency director, resigned amid public accusations of Democratic bias from Mr Trump. He was planning to retire in March.
Chairman Nunes, who served on the Trump team during his White House
transition, said on Wednesday it was "no surprise" that the FBI has
objected to the memo's release.
"Having stonewalled Congress'
demands for information for nearly a year, it's no surprise to see the
FBI and DoJ issue spurious objections to allowing the American people to
see information related to surveillance abuses at these agencies," he
said.
A top Democrat on the House committee, Adam Schiff, said
that releasing the memo "increases the risk of a constitutional crisis
by setting the stage for subsequent actions by the White House to fire
[Special Counsel Robert] Mueller or, as now seems more likely, Deputy
Attorney General Rod J Rosenstein".
Democratic Senator Dianne
Feinstein, who serves on the Senate Intelligence committee, said that
the Republicans are clearly trying to "undermine the special counsel's
investigation".
"There's no excuse for playing politics with highly classified information," Mrs Feinstein added.
No comments:
Post a Comment