The House Intelligence Committee on Saturday released the Democratic rebuttal to the so-called Nunes memo.
Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee on Saturday released their rebuttal to the so-called Nunes memo.
The Democratic memo was drafted after Rep. Devin Nunes, the committee's chairman, first authored a memo alleging that the Department of Justice and FBI overstepped their surveillance authority when applying for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant targeting Carter Page, a former adviser to President Donald Trump's campaign.
Among other things, the Democratic memo accuses Nunes of cherry-picking information to misrepresent the intelligence community's work and discredit the FBI's investigation into Russia's election interference.
It asserts that, contrary to the Nunes memo's claim that the DOJ breached proper protocol when applying for the Page warrant, the agency "met the rigor, transparency, and evidentiary basis needed" to establish probable cause to monitor Page's communications.
According to the Democrats' memo, the DOJ provided the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court with "contemporaneous evidence" of Russia's interference in the 2016 election; information about "concerning Russian links and outreach to Trump campaign officials,"; Page's history with Russia-linked individuals and entities; and Page's "suspicious activities in 2016," including those during a trip he took to Moscow in July of that year, during which he met with high-ranking Russian officials.
Moreover, the memo disputed one of the key pillars of Republican claims of bias in the Russia investigation: that the FBI relied extensively on the so-called Steele dossier, an explosive and unverified collection of memos alleging Trump-Russia collusion that was authored by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele.
The raw intelligence Steele obtained "did not inform the FBI's decision" to open the Russia investigation in July 2016, the Democratic memo said. To be sure, the FBI did not obtain the Steele dossier until two months later. The dossier also did not make up the sole basis for the DOJ's application for the Page warrant; in fact, the memo said, the DOJ "cited multiple sources" to support its case and "made only narrow use" of Steele's intelligence, most of which was related to Page's trip to Moscow in July 2016.
Page met with several top Russian officials during the trip, according to his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee last year. Page said that in addition to meeting with members of Russia's presidential administration, he also interacted Igor Sechin, one of the heads of Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft during the trip.
During the meeting, Sechin reportedly raised the possibility of lifting US sanctions on Russia if Trump became president. Page left the Trump campaign after news reports of the meeting surfaced in September 2016.
When Schiff asked Page during his testimony whether Andrey Baranov, who is the head of investor relations at Rosneft, brought up "a potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft" during the July trip, Page replied, "He may have briefly mentioned it."
Page added that he did "not directly" express support for the idea of lifting sanctions in exchange for a stake in Rosneft.
Outside of its reliance on Steele's information about Page's July 2016 Moscow trip, the Democratic memo said the DOJ "did not otherwise rely on Steele's reporting, including any 'salacious' allegations about Trump."
It also noted that the FBI did not pay Steele for his work, but trusted him as a source because of his status as a longtime FBI informant and the credibility of past information he had provided.
The memo added that when seeking subsequent renewals of the Page FISA warrant, the DOJ provided separate intelligence obtained from independent sources that appeared to corroborate Steele's findings. The specifics of what evidence the DOJ provided were redacted.
The Democratic memo was compiled by committee ranking member Adam Schiff. The White House counsel Don McGahn said at first, in a letter to the committee earlier this month, that Trump was unable to declassify it because of "numerous properly classified and sensitive passages." The White House directed the Justice Department to assist the committee in making changes that would facilitate the document's release.
Trump's response to the Democratic memo differed significantly from his response to the Nunes memo, which he declassified without redactions shortly after it was sent to the White House.
This story is developing. Check back for updates.
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The House Intelligence Committee on Saturday released the Democratic rebuttal to the so-called Nunes memo. Read Full Story
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