Despite objections from the FBI and prominent congressional lawmakers, President Donald Trump authorized the release of a controversial FISA memo authored by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) on Friday afternoon.
Now, its available for the public to read. In it, Nunes alleges that the FBI and DOJ excluded information from a dossier of alleged Trump-Russia contacts that it was paid for at times by the DNC, thus ignoring its “anti-Trump financial and ideological motivations.” It also notes how Christopher Steele, who wrote the dossier, told a DOJ higher-up that he was “desperate that Donald Trump not get elected.”
It also says that Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe told the House Committee that he would not have sought a FISA warrant without the dossier’s existence, which Nunes alleges the FBI knew to be false, citing testimony from FBI Director James Comey. McCabe left the FBI this week, fueling speculation that he would be named in the dossier.
The memo has been at the center of a political firestorm for more than week, leading to conspiracy theories and a hard push from far-right supporters of the president to #ReleaseTheMemo.
Shortly after news broke about the Trump administration declassifying the memo and OKing its release, Trump called the contents of the memo “terrible.”
“You want to know the truth? I think it’s a disgrace,” Trump said. “What’s going on in this country, I think its a disgrace. The memo was sent to Congress. It was declassified… When you look at that, and you see that, and so many other things. What’s going on—a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves and much worse than that.”
WATCH: President Trump says memo is “terrible”
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 2, 2018
“You want to know the truth, I think it’s a disgrace … A lot of people should be ashamed of themselves.” – https://t.co/kdrUxk2XiK pic.twitter.com/LdvAMC388h
The memo has faced intense pushback from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers and the FBI—which said it had “grave concerns” about it being released.
The House Intelligence Committee voted earlier this week to release the memo—but not the classified documents it is based on, making it essentially Nunes’ interpretation of the documents. The committee voted not to release a Democrat-written memo refuting Nunes’ memo.
Democrats have said Nunes’ memo is “rife with factual inaccuracies.”
You can read Nunes memo here.
