House Intel Committee votes to release memo
The House Intelligence Committee on Monday evening voted to release the classified memo that purportedly reveals government surveillance abuses. The motion passed on a party-line basis, participants noted.
President Trump has five days to decide whether he has any objections before the memo can be publicly released.
Fox News reports that last week, a top Justice Department official urged House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes not to release the memo, saying it would be “extraordinarily reckless” and could harm national security and ongoing investigations.
The four-page memo has being described by GOP lawmakers as “shocking,” “troubling” and “alarming,” with one congressman likening the details to KGB activity in Russia.
Those who have seen the document suggest it reveals what role the unverified anti-Trump "dossier" played in the application for a surveillance warrant on at least one Trump associate.
The vote came the same day that it was reported that FBI official Andrew McCabe has left his post as deputy director.
“We want full transparency,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Monday. “That's what we have said all along.” Sanders said they were letting the process play out before officially weighing in.
On Sunday, FBI Director Christopher Wray went to the Capitol on Sunday to view the four-page memo, sources told Fox News.
One source told Fox News that Wray was asked to point out inaccuracies or other issues with the wording -- and said he would need “his people to take a look at it.” The source said the review is ongoing.
South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, who helped write the four-page memo, said Sunday he wants it made public suggesting the memo indeed addresses whether the FBI relied at least in part on the dossier -- paid for partially by Democrats and the Clinton campaign during the 2016 presidential election -- to apply to a secret federal court to get a surveillance warrant, purportedly on then-Trump adviser Carter Page.
“If you … want to know whether or not the dossier was used in court proceedings, whether or not it was vetted before it was used. … If you are interested in who paid for the dossier … then, yes, you'll want the memo to come out,” Gowdy told “Fox News Sunday.”
