The US House Intelligence Committee has released a redacted, 10-page Democratic Party memo on the Russian investigation into alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, which challenges the previously released GOP memo.
The Democrats’ rebuttal aims to challenge the alleged government surveillance abuses during the 2016 presidential campaign, that the GOP had outlined in their memorandum.
The document accuses the Republicans of selectively drawing on “highly sensitive information,” as well as of “other distortions and misrepresentations.” It also called the GOP memo a “transparent effort” to undermine the FBI, Justice Department and special counsel Robert Mueller.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump blocked the release of the Democrats’ rebuttal, sending the document back to the House Intelligence Committee for revision, citing “national security concerns.” The House Democrats heavily redacted the memorandum before releasing it on Saturday.
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The opposing memos center on the FBI’s use of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant during the election cycle to spy on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser, on suspicions of him being a “Russian agent.”
The Republicans’ three-and-a-half-page memo, released earlier this month, claims that US law enforcement misled the court by not disclosing the fact that that they were relying on information in their investigation that was financed by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
The Democrats, however, disagree, claiming that “FBI and DOJ officials did not 'abuse' the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, nor subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign.”
“In fact, DOJ and the FBI would have been remiss in their duty to protect the country had they not sought a FISA warrant and repeated renewals to conduct temporary surveillance of Carter Page, someone the FBI assessed to be an agent of the Russian government,” the Democrats argue.
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RT
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