Washington,
\nThe FBI warned on Thursday it has \u201cgrave concerns\u201d over the accuracy of a secret Congressional memo that could depict the agency as deeply politicized, as President Donald Trump\u2019s top aide signalled the White House would allow the document\u2019s release.<\/p>\n
Based on highly classified information, the four-page memo written by Republican lawmaker Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee suggests that the Justice Department and the FBI abused their power in running surveillance on a member of President Donald Trump\u2019s election campaign in 2016.<\/p>\n
The Justice Department and the FBI have actively lobbied against its release, which has the potential to taint special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians, an investigation that is edging closer to the president himself.<\/p>\n
But White House chief of staff John Kelly said yesterday that the document could be made public soon, once White House lawyers have vetted it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be released here pretty quick I think, and the whole world can see it,\u201d Kelly told Fox Radio.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis president …. wants everything out so the American people can make up their own minds. And if there are people to be held accountable, then so be it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The FBI stressed its concerns in an extraordinary, unsigned public statement that demonstrated its growing rift with Trump and Nunes, a staunch defender in Congress of the president.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith regard to the House Intelligence Committee\u2019s memorandum, the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo\u2019s accuracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement, Nunes countered that it was \u201cno surprise\u201d that the Justice Department and FBI would oppose the release of \u201cinformation related to surveillance abuses at these agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counter-intelligence investigation during an American political campaign,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Nunes\u2019 committee voted on Monday to release the memo, distilled from a much larger volume of documents used by the FBI to get a so-called FISA national security warrant to spy on Trump campaign official Carter Page, who was suspected of espionage.<\/p>\n
Media reports, citing lawmakers who have seen the document, say it alleges that to obtain the warrant, they submitted as evidence the contentious and unproven \u201cRussia dossier.\u201d<\/p>\n
The dossier includes information on contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele and financed in part by Democrat Hillary Clinton\u2019s presidential campaign.<\/p>\n
Republicans say it provides evidence that the Justice Department, allegedly full of pro-Clinton officials, actively sought to undermine Trump.<\/p>\n
Because of its sensitive nature, to release the memo, Nunes needs the president\u2019s approval.<\/p>\n
But Democrats say the memo is based on selective information that does not reflect the entire classified file on the FISA warrant application on Page.<\/p>\n
Instead, they say, Nunes is running a politically- motivated stunt to smear the Mueller collusion investigation, which is also examining whether Trump tried to obstruct the probe.<\/p>\n
Indeed, Democrats raised questions on Wednesday over whether Trump worked with Nunes to produce the memo.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s announcement that the FBI has \u2018grave concerns\u2019 about the Nunes memo is the latest reason not to release it,\u201d said Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s clear the goal is to undermine the special counsel\u2019s investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The release of the memo could sour relations between the president and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which Trump has repeatedly attacked as biased against him.<\/p>\n
In May 2017, Trump fired FBI director James Comey, who refused to swear personal loyalty to the president as he pressed forward on the Russia investigation.<\/p>\n
Trump has also alleged that the FBI deliberately went easy on Clinton in its 2016 criminal investigation into her misuse of a private email server when she was secretary of state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington, The FBI warned on Thursday it has \u201cgrave concerns\u201d over the accuracy of a secret Congressional memo that could depict the agency as deeply politicized, as President Donald Trump\u2019s top aide signalled the White House would allow the document\u2019s release. Based on highly classified information, the four-page memo written by Republican lawmaker Devin Nunes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20526,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20525"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20527,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20525\/revisions\/20527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}