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Trump Clears the Way for Release of Secret Republican Memo Trump Clears the Way for Release of Secret Republican Memo
(about 5 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Trump cleared the way on Thursday for the release of a secret memo written by Republican congressional staffers and said to accuse federal law enforcement officials of abusing their surveillance authorities. WASHINGTON — The White House signaled on Thursday that President Trump would allow a secret memo written by Republican congressional aides to be made public, despite fears from some in the West Wing that it could prompt the resignation of the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, and lead to another crisis for the administration.
Mr. Trump, who had a brief window to block the memo’s disclosure on national security grounds, was expected to tell Congress on Friday that he had no objections and would likely not request any material be redacted, according to a senior administration official. It would then be up to the House Intelligence Committee, whose Republican leaders have pushed for its release, to make the document public. Mr. Trump, who had a brief window to block the memo’s disclosure on national security grounds, was expected to tell Congress on Friday that he had no objections and would probably not request that any of its substance be redacted, according to a senior administration official.
The president’s decision came despite a growing chorus of warnings from national security officials who say that releasing the document would jeopardize sensitive government information, including how intelligence is gathered, and from Democrats who say it is politically motivated and distorts the actions of the Justice Department and the F.B.I. by omitting crucial context. The president’s eagerness to see the document made public pitted him against his own top national security officials, who have warned that it omits crucial context and that its release would jeopardize sensitive government information. The memo is said to accuse federal law enforcement officials of abusing their authorities in seeking court permission to surveil a former Trump campaign adviser.
But Mr. Trump wanted the memo out. He had told people close to him that he believes it makes the case that law enforcement officials acted inappropriately in seeking the highly classified warrant on one of his campaign advisers, Carter Page. White House aides worked on Thursday to accommodate concerns raised by Mr. Wray as well as Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence. It was unclear what changes, if any, were being made before the document was transmitted back to the House. White House officials cautioned that the situation remained fluid.
Speaker Paul D. Ryan on Thursday defended the memo and its primary author, Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California, saying the document was not an attack on institutions like the F.B.I. and Justice Department, and was not meant to undermine the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. Once Mr. Trump’s decision is formally conveyed to Congress, the House Intelligence Committee, whose leaders have pushed for its release, can make the document public. Exactly how and when that would happen was not immediately clear. Republicans were relying on a never-before-used House rule and did not telegraph their plans.
At least one Republican, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 in the Senate, urged his House colleagues on Thursday to slow their push to release the memo. Mr. Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein had already tried unsuccessfully this week to persuade the White House to stop the release of the memo, and Thomas O’Connor, the president of the F.B.I. Agents Association, issued a statement on Thursday supporting Mr. Wray. It thanked the director for “standing shoulder to shoulder with the men and women of the F.B.I.” and came a day after the bureau itself strongly condemned the push for the memo’s release.
Mr. Thune said he thought that the Senate Intelligence Committee and its Republican chairman, Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, should be allowed to see the document before its release. He also said that House Republicans should carefully consider the F.B.I.’s warning that it had “grave concerns” about making the memo public. Despite the White House worries about his unhappiness at the prospect of the document’s release, Mr. Wray, who has kept a relatively low profile since taking over the F.B.I. in August, was unlikely to resign over this issue, people familiar with his thinking said.
“They need to pay careful attention to what our folks who protect us have to say about what this, you know, how this bears on our national security,” Mr. Thune told reporters at the Republicans’ annual policy retreat at the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia. Speaker Paul D. Ryan, speaking Thursday to reporters at the Republicans’ annual policy retreat in West Virginia, rejected criticisms of the memo and offered a full-throated defense of the document.
Mr. Thune also called for a Democratic memo rebutting the Republican document to be shown to the public at the same time. “This memo is not an indictment of the F.B.I., of the Department of Justice. It does not impugn the Mueller investigation or the deputy attorney general,” he said, referring to Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating the Russian election meddling and whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice.
In a rare statement on Wednesday, the F.B.I. strongly condemned the memo’s release, saying the bureau had “grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.” Instead, Mr. Ryan said, the memo was the product of Congress employing oversight of the executive branch.
People familiar with the three-and-a-half page Republican memo say it contends that officials from the F.B.I. and Justice Department may have misled a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge when they sought a warrant to spy on Mr. Page in October 2016. The people say the officials relied on information handed over by a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, without adequately explaining to the judge that Democrats had financed his research. Mr. Trump has told the people close to him that he believes the memo, which the White House confirmed he had read, makes the case that law enforcement officials acted inappropriately and with bias in the early days of the Russia investigation. He has spent less time talking about it in the White House than some of his supporters have, however.
Also at issue on Thursday were charges by Democrats that the Republicans had made “material changes” to the memo after the Intelligence Committee voted to release it but before it was transmitted to the White House for review. Representative Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, wrote in a letter late Wednesday that the committee needed to restart the process and vote again on the revised memo under the same never-before-used House rules that the committee invoked to vote on the release. The committee had initially voted along party lines on Monday in favor of release. But people close to Mr. Trump who have been told of the memo’s contents, both inside and outside the White House, conceded that the document was not likely to deliver on those expectations.
The letter started yet another round of finger-pointing among committee members, who have bitterly wrestled over the memo. Republicans quickly countered Wednesday night that Mr. Schiff was “complaining about minor edits” and said their vote was “absolutely procedurally sound.” Another person familiar with the changes described them as more than cosmetic and an attempt to water down assertions made in the document. Republicans who have seen the three-and-a-half page memo say it makes a case that political bias infected a key action in the early stages of the Russia investigation. It contends that officials from the F.B.I. and Justice Department may have misled a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge when they sought a warrant to spy on the former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page, in October 2016.
In a sharply worded letter of her own Thursday morning, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, called on Mr. Ryan to remove Mr. Nunes as the Intelligence Committee’s chairman. The memo says the officials relied in part on information handed over by a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, without adequately explaining to the judge that the research was paid for by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, according to people who have read the document. And it says the material from Mr. Steele was not vetted.
“Congressman Nunes’ deliberately dishonest actions make him unfit to serve as Chairman, and he must be removed immediately from this position,” she wrote, adding, “The integrity of the House is at stake.” Law enforcement officials described Mr. Steele not as an investigator funded by Democrats but as a reliable source to the bureau who had provided helpful information about corruption in FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, according to two people familiar with the warrant application.
Mr. Nunes gave no indication that he intended to change course. The memo is also said to take note of the role of several senior law enforcement officials, including Mr. Rosenstein and Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy director of the F.B.I. who quit under pressure this week. Both men were said to be involved at various points in authorizing applications for the surveillance that Republicans say was flawed.
Mr. Trump had five days from the time of the vote to review the document for national security concerns and try to block it. The president apparently made up his mind quickly, telling a Republican congressman after his State of the Union address Tuesday night that he would not stop the release. The document was primarily written by Kashyap Patel, a committee staff member for Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California and the chairman of the Intelligence Committee.
The White House also allowed officials from the nation’s intelligence agencies to review the document, but the Senate Intelligence Committee’s earlier request to see the memo was declined by House Republicans. Democrats who have seen it say the Republican document amounts to a risky attempt to construct a narrative to undercut the Russia investigation. They say it relies on cherry-picked facts and disregards key context.
Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee, called the document “a banal, inferior, non-shocking, insubstantial memo.”
“Obviously, they wanted to make a point and claim prejudice against President Trump,” he said on Thursday. “When you read the Democratic side, the minority report, it is pretty obvious that all the information that could be before the judge was there.”
Mr. Page had been on the authorities’ radar for years. He had visited Moscow in July 2016 and was preparing to return there that December when investigators obtained the warrant.
Tensions ran high on Thursday among lawmakers, with the House and Senate Democratic leaders calling on Mr. Ryan to remove Mr. Nunes from his chairmanship and one senior Republican senator cautioning that his House colleagues should slow down their push to release the document.
Republicans and Democrats on the Intelligence Committee spent the day arguing over charges by Democrats that the Republicans had made “material changes” to the memo after the committee voted to release it but before it was transmitted to the White House for review. Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, wrote in a letter late Wednesday that the committee needed to restart the process and vote on the revised memo.
Republicans quickly countered that Mr. Schiff was “complaining about minor edits” and said their vote was “absolutely procedurally sound.” But a senior Democratic official familiar with the changes said the Democrats had found five material differences in the versions of the memo, including one that the official described as an apparent effort to water down the Republican findings. There were six separate changes to grammar or word choice, the official said. It was not immediately clear whether the changes were related to those requested by the F.B.I.
In a sharply worded letter of her own, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, called on Mr. Nunes to be removed as the Intelligence Committee’s chairman.
“Congressman Nunes’s deliberately dishonest actions make him unfit to serve as chairman, and he must be removed immediately from this position,” she wrote, adding, “The integrity of the House is at stake.”
Mr. Ryan dismissed the idea during his afternoon news conference, saying that the Democrats were merely “playing politics.”
Mr. Ryan — speaking in part to his Republican colleagues — urged readers of the memo not to “draw lines” between the material discussed in it and the work or character of Mr. Mueller or Mr. Rosenstein.
The plea was not universally embraced.
Representative Jeff Duncan, Republican of South Carolina, who has been among the memo’s most vocal advocates, wrote on Twitter that the F.B.I. was right to have “grave concerns” about the release “as it will shake the organization down to its core.”
At least three prominent Republican senators — John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 in the Senate; Lindsey Graham of South Carolina; and Jeff Flake of Arizona — urged caution. Mr. Flake, in a joint statement with Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, said releasing the memo “risks undermining U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts, politicizing Congress’ oversight role and eroding confidence in our institutions of government.”
Mr. Thune said he thought that the Senate Intelligence Committee and its Republican chairman, Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, should be allowed to see the document before its release. And he called for a Democratic memo rebutting the Republican document to be shown to the public at the same time.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday night at a Charleston, S.C., hotel, Mr. Graham expressed concerns over the handling of the memo, which he, like other senators, has not read.
“I’m the chair of the Judiciary Crime Subcommittee with oversight of the F.B.I.,” he said. “I don’t particularly appreciate having to read about it in the paper.”
He suggested that Mr. Nunes’s document was not the best avenue for informing the public.
“A partisan memo,” he said, “is going to lead to another partisan memo.”