Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and his controversial FISA memo are facing some extreme push back as reports suggest the president has decided to release it.
Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) cautioned the House from releasing the memo that reportedly alleges abuses by the FBI and Department of Justice.
The memo is supposed to outline how the FBI obtained a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to snoop on former Trump adviser Carter Page during the 2016 election.
However, when the House Intelligence Committee voted to release the memo, it did not include releasing the classified documents it is based on, making it essentially an interpretation of classified documents compiled by Nunes and his staff.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sent separate letters to House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday blasting Nunes.
“Quite simply, under your leadership, dangerous partisanship among many House Republicans seems to have taken precedent over the oath we all take to protect our nation,” Schumer wrote. Pelosi called Nunes behavior “dangerous” and “illegitimate” and called on Ryan to remove Nunes from his chairmanship.
The memo has become the center of controversy and conspiracy theories.
Thune said Nunes and the House needed to “take into consideration,” the call from the FBI on Wednesday not to release the document, the Hill reports.
“They have to take into consideration what the FBI is saying, and if there are things that need to be redacted, I think they need to pay careful attention to what our folks who protect us have to say about how this bears on our national security,” Thune said.
In a rare public statement, the FBI said it had “grave concerns” about omissions and inaccuracies in the memo just hours after President Donald Trump was overheard saying that he would “100 percent” release it.
A senior administration official told reporters this afternoon that he expects the president to tell Congress on Friday that he is “OK” with the memo being released.
However, other White House officials told CNN they were worried that the release of the memo could cause newly installed FBI Director Christopher Wray to quit and that Wray has been “raising hell” behind the scenes.
Late Wednesday night, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) accused Nunes of making “material changes” to the FISA memo. Schiff said there were “substantive” changes made to the memo that the committee voted to release earlier this week. Schiff has also said the memo is “rife with factual inaccuracies.”
A spokesperson for Nunes said Schiff’s claims were a “strange attempt to thwart publication of the memo.”
