WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Saturday agreed to release a redacted version of a Democratic memo that seeks to undercut Republican claims of FBI surveillance abuses.

The House Intelligence Committee released the Democratic memo after the White House signed off following negotiations between the FBI and the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, over what in the document should be redacted.

Earlier this month, the White House objected to releasing the memo, saying that sensitive material had to be removed first.

Schiff’s memo was written to rebut a Republican memo that accuses the FBI of suppressing Democratic ties to an opposition research dossier on Trump and Russia used in the FISA warrant for former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page.

Schiff and other Democrats charge that the Republican memo led by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes of California is misleading and omits key facts, including that the FISA application did state that ex-British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, was paid by a political entity. FBI Director Christopher Wray also expressed concerns, publicly warning the White House that omitted information could impact the memo’s veracity.

The release of the Schiff memo caps an unprecedented and tumultuous period for the committee, which has now voted to release two classified documents using an obscure committee rule that had never been invoked previously in the panel’s history.</s>Why did this happen?

Please make sure your browser supports JavaScript and cookies and that you are not blocking them from loading. For more information you can review our Terms of Service and Cookie Policy.</s>WASHINGTON, DC – President Donald Trump on Saturday agreed to release a redacted version of a Democratic memo that seeks to undercut Republican claims of FBI surveillance abuses.

The House Intelligence Committee released the Democratic memo after the White House signed off following negotiations between the FBI and the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, over what in the document should be redacted.

Earlier this month, the White House objected to releasing the memo, saying that sensitive material had to be removed first.

Schiff’s memo was written to rebut a Republican memo that accuses the FBI of suppressing Democratic ties to an opposition research dossier on Trump and Russia used in the FISA warrant for former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page.

Schiff and other Democrats charge that the Republican memo led by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes of California is misleading and omits key facts, including that the FISA application did state that ex-British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, was paid by a political entity. FBI Director Christopher Wray also expressed concerns, publicly warning the White House that omitted information could impact the memo’s veracity.

The release of the Schiff memo caps an unprecedented and tumultuous period for the committee, which has now voted to release two classified documents using an obscure committee rule that had never been invoked previously in the panel’s history.</s>The House Intelligence Committee on Saturday released a Democratic memo in redacted form that seeks to undercut Republican claims of FBI surveillance abuses.

The committee made the Democratic memo public after the White House signed off following negotiations between the FBI and the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, over what in the document should be redacted.

Earlier this month, the White House objected to releasing the memo, saying that sensitive material had to be removed first.

Schiff's memo was written to rebut a Republican memo that accuses the FBI of suppressing Democratic ties to an opposition research dossier on then-candidate Donald Trump and Russia used in the FISA warrant for former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page.

"The Democratic response memo released today should put to rest any concerns that the American people might have as to the conduct of the FBI, the Justice Department and the FISC," Schiff said in a statement. "Our extensive review of the initial FISA application and three subsequent renewals failed to uncover any evidence of illegal, unethical, or unprofessional behavior by law enforcement and instead revealed that both the FBI and DOJ made extensive showings to justify all four requests."

The White House said in a statement that nothing in the Democratic memo counters Trump's statements that neither he nor his campaign colluded with Russia.

"While the Democrats' memorandum attempts to undercut the President politically, the President supported its release in the interest of transparency," the statement read. "Nevertheless, this politically driven document fails to answer serious concerns raised by the Majority's memorandum about the use of partisan opposition research from one candidate, loaded with uncorroborated allegations, as a basis to ask a court to approve surveillance of a former associate of another candidate, at the height of a presidential campaign."

Schiff and other Democrats charge that the Republican memo led by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes of California is misleading and omits key facts, including that the FISA application did state that ex-British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, was paid by a political entity. FBI Director Christopher Wray also expressed concerns, publicly warning the White House that omitted information could impact the memo's veracity.

Speaking Saturday afternoon at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Nunes said that he wanted the Democratic memo released "because we think it's clear evidence that the Democrats are not only trying to cover this up, but they're also colluding with parts of the government to help cover this up.

"So what you basically will read in the Democratic memo is that they are advocating that it's okay for the FBI and DOJ to use political dirt paid for by one campaign and use it against the other campaign," Nunes said.

The release of the Schiff memo caps an unprecedented and tumultuous period for the committee, which has now voted to release two classified documents using an obscure committee rule that had never been invoked previously in the panel's history.</s>(CNN) The House Intelligence Committee on Saturday released a Democratic memo in redacted form that seeks to undercut Republican claims of FBI surveillance abuses.

The committee made the Democratic memo public after the White House signed off following negotiations between the FBI and the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, over what in the document should be redacted.

Earlier this month, the White House objected to releasing the memo, saying that sensitive material had to be removed first.

Schiff's memo was written to rebut a Republican memo that accuses the FBI of suppressing Democratic ties to an opposition research dossier on then-candidate Donald Trump and Russia used in the FISA warrant for former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page.

The memo defended both the FBI and Justice Department's role in obtaining the FISA warrant — agencies that have been under fire from Republican critics who have also sought to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

"The Democratic response memo released today should put to rest any concerns that the American people might have as to the conduct of the FBI, the Justice Department and the FISC," Schiff said in a statement. "Our extensive review of the initial FISA application and three subsequent renewals failed to uncover any evidence of illegal, unethical, or unprofessional behavior by law enforcement and instead revealed that both the FBI and DOJ made extensive showings to justify all four requests."

The White House said in a statement that nothing in the Democratic memo counters Trump's statements that neither he nor his campaign colluded with Russia.

"While the Democrats' memorandum attempts to undercut the President politically, the President supported its release in the interest of transparency," the statement read. "Nevertheless, this politically driven document fails to answer serious concerns raised by the Majority's memorandum about the use of partisan opposition research from one candidate, loaded with uncorroborated allegations, as a basis to ask a court to approve surveillance of a former associate of another candidate, at the height of a presidential campaign."

Schiff and other Democrats charge that the Republican memo led by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes of California is misleading and omits key facts, including that the FISA application did state that ex-British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, was paid by a political entity. FBI Director Christopher Wray also expressed concerns about the Nunes memo, publicly warning the White House that omitted information could impact the memo's veracity.

Speaking Saturday afternoon at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Nunes said that he wanted the Democratic memo released "because we think it is clear evidence that the Democrats are not only trying to cover this up, but they're also colluding with parts of the government to help cover this up.

"So what you basically will read in the Democratic memo is that they are advocating that it's okay for the FBI and DOJ to use political dirt paid for by one campaign and use it against the other campaign," Nunes said.

In a written statement, Nunes added that "the FISA court was misled about Mr. Page's past interactions with the FBI in which he helped build a case against Russian operatives in America who were brought to justice. It defies belief that the Department of Justice and FBI failed to provide information to a secret court that they had provided to an open federal court regarding their past interactions with Mr. Page."

Two of the key arguments in Schiff's memo are that the FBI's request for a FISA warrant on Page was proper, and that the political motivations behind Steele's research were sufficiently disclosed.

The Schiff memo cites the FBI's previous interest in Page, including a March 2016 interview with him about his contact with Russian intelligence.

"The FBI's concern about and knowledge of Page's activities therefore long predate the FBI's receipt of Steele's information," the memo states.

The memo also argues that Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump and Russia, played no role in the FBI's launching of the counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, which occurred on July 31, 2016.

"Steele's reporting did not reach the counterintelligence team investigating Russia at FBI headquarters until mid-September 2016, more than seven weeks after the FBI opened its investigation, because the probe's existence was so closely held within the FBI," the memo states.

By September 2016, the memo says, the FBI had already opened "sub-inquiries" into a number of Trump campaign associates beyond Page, although the number is redacted.

In the three subsequent FISA renewals, the Justice Department provided information "obtained through multiple independent sources" that corroborated parts of what Steele reported about Page, the memo states, though many details of that section are redacted.

The memo states that Steele's role was properly disclosed in the October 2016 FISA application, including his political motivations. The Republican memo argues that the FISA application failed to note that Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee were indirectly paying for Steele's research.

The Schiff memo cites the FISA application's note that Steele's research appeared intended for use "to discredit" Trump's campaign, and argues that the Justice Department appropriately did not "unmask" US officials in the FISA application.

The memo notes that when the FISA application was first filed, Steele was not told by Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson that Clinton's campaign and the DNC were paying Fusion GPS for his research.

"The identified US person (Simpson) never advised source #1 (Steele) as to the motivation behind the research into candidate #1's ties to Russia," the FISA application states, according to Schiff's memo. "The FBI speculates that the identified US person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit candidate #1's campaign."

The Republican staff of the House Intelligence Committee issued a rebuttal to Schiff's memo, arguing the FBI appeared to be avoiding informing the court about Steele's connections to Clinton and the DNC — and they charged the Schiff memo also failed to note Steele's connections to Democrats.

"As clearly stated in the GOP memo, none of the Page FISA applications 'disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele's efforts,'" the Republican document states. "Instead, the FISA application relies on a convoluted statement buried in a footnote. This is clearly an attempt to avoid informing the Court, in a straightforward manner that the DNC and Clinton campaign paid for the dossier."

The release of the Schiff memo caps an unprecedented and tumultuous period for the committee, which has now voted to release two classified documents using an obscure committee rule that had never been invoked previously in the panel's history.

The committee's Republicans first voted to release the Republican memo last month, without the Democratic rebuttal document, before later agreeing to release the Democratic memo, too.

Trump indicated he wanted the Republican memo out — over the objections of the FBI and Justice Department. The committee rule puts the decision to object to releasing the classified material in the hands of the President, and he declassified the Republican document without changes.

But the White House objected to releasing the Democratic memo, citing the concerns about releasing sensitive information, and called for redactions before it could be made public.

That set off a period of negotiations between the Democratic committee staff and the FBI.

Schiff had warned he was concerned the White House would make "political redactions," but a senior Democratic committee official said that the redacted document released Saturday "came back clean" from Justice Department and the FBI.</s>A redacted, unclassified version of a much-anticipated memo drafted by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and the other Democrats on the House intelligence committee was released Saturday evening just as Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the panel's chairman, addressed an annual gathering of conservatives.

The memo is the Democrats' effort to respond to recent Republican efforts, led by Nunes, to argue that the Department of Justice, the FBI and the special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller are infected with political bias against the Trump campaign and the president.

The memo defends the Justice Department and FBI for its surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Nunes had argued, through his own memo released earlier this month, that the FBI had abused its surveillance authority and relied improperly on politically motivated sources — namely former British spy Christopher Steele who had been paid by Fusion GPS, a private intelligence firm hired first by conservative underwriters and then retained by Democrats during the 2016 campaign.

"FBI and DOJ officials did not 'abuse' the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign," the Democratic memo asserts.

The FBI and DOJ "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," the Democrats write, adding that the "DOJ met the rigor, transparency and evidentiary basis needed to meet FISA's probable cause requirement."

The Democratic countermemo released Saturday argues that the Nunes memo is filled with incomplete information. Page had been assessed to be "an agent of the Russian government," the Democratic memo asserts, and the Justice Department was acting to protect national security.

But the White House pushed back on the memo, arguing that the special intelligence court that approved the surveillance of Page was never informed specifically "that Hillary Clinton and the DNC funded the dossier that was a basis for the Department of Justice's FISA application."

"As the President has long stated, neither he nor his campaign ever colluded with a foreign power during the 2016 election, and nothing in today's memo counters that fact," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also in the statement.

And President Trump himself tweeted Saturday evening that the Schiff memo "confirms all the terrible things that were done."

In his own statement about the Democratic memo, Nunes was more scathing than Sanders. "The American people now clearly understand that the FBI used political dirt paid for by the Democratic Party to spy on an American citizen from the Republican Party," Nunes said.

And after the Democratic memo's release, Schiff sought to move on from allegations that the FBI and DOJ have been politically biased in their Russia investigation, allegations that have been building after a steady Republican drumbeat of accusations over several months.

"The Democratic response memo released today should put to rest any concerns that the American people might have as to the conduct of the FBI, the Justice Department and the [intelligence court]," Schiff said in a statement. "Our extensive review of the initial FISA application and three subsequent renewals failed to uncover any evidence of illegal, unethical, or unprofessional behavior by law enforcement and instead revealed that both the FBI and DOJ made extensive showings to justify all four requests."

The Democratic memo argues the warrants for surveillance of Page included evidence that Russia was interfering in the election, that Russia had made outreach to Trump campaign officials, that Page had a history with Russian intelligence and that Page was involved in "suspicious activities" during a trip to Moscow during the campaign.

Instead of being a flawed, politically biased document intended to get permission to spy on the Trump campaign, the warrant application met all the necessary requirements to show probable cause, according to the committee's Democrats.

The warrant request outlined Page's history as someone who pursued business deals with Russia's state-owned energy company, had been targeted by Russian intelligence for recruitment, and had visited Moscow while an adviser to Trump's campaign, the memo says.

These requests to surveil Page then received independent scrutiny and approval by four federal judges, all appointed by Republican presidents — two appointed by George W. Bush, one by George H.W. Bush and one by Ronald Reagan — the memo points out.

The counterintelligence investigation into Page, the memo continues, was not initiated by reporting from Steele, but instead started seven weeks earlier. The information that law enforcement officials did use from Steele was "narrow" and concerned Page's suspected July 2016 meetings in Moscow with Russian officials.

The trustworthiness of the dossier compiled by Steele about Trump's ties to Russia has been at the center of attacks by Trump's allies on the fundamental allegation that his presidential campaign might have conspired with the Russian attack during the 2016 election, an allegation under investigation by Mueller's team. According to Schiff's memo, the FBI used other sources to back up some of its assertions in the warrant application seeking permission to surveil Page.

"DOJ cited multiple sources to support the case for surveilling Page," the memo says, and further disclosed Steele's previous work with the FBI, as well as the fact that he had been "hired by politically-motivated U.S. persons and entities and that his research appeared intended for use 'to discredit' Trump's campaign." This contradicts the Nunes memo assertion that such information had been omitted.

"In subsequent FISA renewals, DOJ provided additional information obtained through multiple independent sources that corroborated Steele's reporting," the Democratic memo also says.

Because the Schiff memo has been redacted, the details are blacked out. Confirmation of some aspects of Steele's dossier is significant, however, because until now there has been no way for the public to assess how much credence it merits.

NPR and other news organizations have not detailed the contents of the Steele dossier because it is unverified, but the file was posted online in full in January 2017 by BuzzFeed News and so its contents are public.

Schiff's memo also notes that Page was no longer affiliated with the Trump campaign when federal officials first applied for a surveillance warrant against him.</s>The Latest on the Democratic memo that aims to counter GOP allegations that the FBI abused government surveillance powers in its investigation into Russian election interference (all times local):

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is dismissing a memo about the Russia election probe that has been declassified by Democrats.

In a statement, Republican congressman Devin Nunes of California reiterates his allegation that the FBI abused a secret surveillance process to spy on a campaign adviser to President Donald Trump, Carter Page.

The Democratic memo, written by Nunes' colleagues on the committee, seeks to rebut those claims in part by detailing allegations of Russian attempts to cultivate Page as a spy.

In response, Page calls the memo "misinformation" and "the latest smear campaign" by Democratic Party loyalists.

President Donald Trump is dismissing the Democratic memo about Russia election meddling as "a total and legal BUST."

Democrats on the House intelligence committee on Saturday released the memo in an effort to rebut GOP claims that the FBI abused U.S. government surveillance powers in its investigation into Russian election interference.

In a series of tweets Saturday, Trump criticized the memo and asserted, "Just confirms all of the terrible things that were done. SO ILLEGAL!"

The White House says a Democratic memo rebutting GOP claims of surveillance abuses in the FBI's Russia investigation fails to answer serious questions.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says questions raised by a memo released earlier by Republicans on the House intelligence committee cover the use of partisan opposition research from one candidate as the basis for asking a federal court to approve surveillance of a former associate of a rival candidate.

Sanders says the Democratic memo is "politically driven."

She says nothing in the memo counters the fact, as the president has been insisting, that neither he nor his campaign ever colluded with a foreign power during the 2016 election.

The White House objected to its release Feb. 9, citing national security concerns. Democrats have since negotiated with the FBI on what material should be blacked out.

A memo released by House Democrats details alleged efforts by Russian operatives to recruit a former Trump campaign aide as a spy.

Carter Page was targeted for recruitment in 2013 by a pair of Russians indicted by the U.S. government. The FBI asked Page about his contacts in a March 2016 interview, according to the memo.

The memo released Saturday cites evidence that was included in applications to conduct surveillance on Page.

The memo also details Russian attempts to cultivate Page as a spy. It cites a federal indictment of two Russian spies who allegedly targeted Page for recruitment and notes that the FBI interviewed him based on those suspicions in March 2016.

In response to the Democratic memo, Page calls it "misinformation" and "the latest smear campaign" by Democratic Party loyalists.

Democrats have released a memo rebutting GOP claims that the FBI abused U.S. government surveillance powers in its investigation into Russian election interference.

The declassified Democratic memo seeks to dispute a main contention from a declassified GOP memo released earlier this month.

The GOP document accused the FBI and Justice Department of using information compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele to obtain a secret warrant to monitor a Trump associate without revealing that Steele's materials were funded by Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

Republicans had said that federal authorities had not disclosed enough to the court about the political nature of the work.

But the Democratic memo contends that the Justice Department disclosed "the assessed political motivation of those who hired him."

Congress has released a redacted, declassified memo that aims to counter GOP allegations that the FBI abused government surveillance powers in its investigation into Russian election interference.

The release comes after weeks of back and forth over how much of the Democratic document would be redacted. The White House objected to its release Feb. 9, citing national security concerns. Democrats have since negotiated with the FBI on what should be blacked out.

President Donald Trump had less concern about an earlier classified memo written by Republicans, which he declassified Feb. 2 over strong objections from the FBI. Trump claims the GOP memo "vindicates" him in the ongoing Russia investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, though other Republicans have disagreed.</s>The Democratic rebuttal memo to the Republican House Intelligence Committee memo on alleged government surveillance abuses was released Saturday afternoon.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., acknowledged its release at his appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference, at about 4 p.m.

"It's just posted," he told American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp, quipping that the committee website was probably already crashing due to high traffic.

Democrats say their memo, spearheaded by ranking member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., was written as a rebuttal to provide greater context to a Republican memo that was released earlier this month, which outlines abuses by the FBI and the Justice Department against the Trump campaign, particularly in the write-up and approval of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant applications to bug ex-Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page.

The Democratic memo says in its first page that "FBI and DOJ officials did not 'abuse' the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign."

It adds, " 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 memo added that the DOJ "met the rigor, transparency, and evidentiary basis needed to meet FISA's probably requirement."

Although the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee voted to make the Democrat’s memo public earlier this month, President Trump refused to declassify it, citing "significant concerns for the national security and law enforcement interests."

As a result, Schiff had been working with Justice Department officials to determine what must be redacted and what can remain in the memo ahead of its release.

The memo, which is 10 pages has a number of redactions.

The Republicans' memo, the release of which was approved, unredacted by Trump earlier this month, was four.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.</s>Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee on Saturday released their redacted response to a Republican memo on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, as Democrats charged that the GOP omitted numerous details about the FBI’s probe during the campaign for the White House.

“FBI and DOJ officials did not “abuse” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign,” the Democratic memo states.

“The FBI supplied information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that Russia might be colluding with Trump campaign associates,” Democrats said in a press statement announcing the release of the memo, which had been held back earlier this month after the White House raised questions about details included in the ten page memo.

“Some time ago, Republicans on our committee released a declassified memo that omitted and distorted key facts in order to mislead the public and impugn the integrity of the FBI,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel.

“We can now tell you what they left out,” Schiff added.

Democrats said their rebuttal “should put to rest any concerns that the American people might have as to the conduct of the FBI, the Justice Department and the FISC,” as they said the evidence “failed to uncover any evidence of illegal, unethical, or unprofessional behavior by law enforcement.”

Democrats not only countered that, but raised questions about the testimony of one-time Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page, who was the focus of the original Republican memo, as the GOP raised questions about how surveillance had been approved of Page.

Democrats said the answer was not the information supplied by ex-British intelligence agent Christopher Steele.

Some portions of the document on those points were blacked out, or redacted.

You can read the full Democratic memo at this link.

Democrats also released a fact sheet to go with the memo.</s>Two weeks after President Donald Trump blocked its release on national security grounds, the House Intelligence Committee on Saturday released a 10-page memo intended to counter Republican claims that the FBI acted inappropriately in pursuing a warrant to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

The memo, penned in January by Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee’s ranking Democrat, was released with redactions on Saturday afternoon after weeks of negotiations between the committee and the Justice Department over what material would be released to the public. Trump had said earlier this month that the unredacted memo “contains numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages.”

Schiff’s memo was written to counter a four-page Republican memo, written by Rep. Devin Nunes, which alleged that the FBI’s decision to include allegations made in a dossier prepared by British ex-spy Christopher Steele in a FISA warrant application called into question the “legitimacy and legality of certain [Justice Department] and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.”

The Justice Department had argued against that memo’s declassification, citing “grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

Moments after he was fêted as a conquering hero at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the memo’s release on Saturday was a body blow to his credibility as a government watchdog. The Schiff-authored memo undermines many of the claims made in Nunes’ document. Among them, the memo declares that Steele’s intelligence reporting “did not inform the FBI’s decision to initiate its counterintelligence investigation,” and that the special counsel investigation into Page’s potential links to the Russian government were based on “troubling” information unrelated to the dossier.

Schiff’s memo also appears to undercut Nunes’ argument that the FBI had hidden the fact that Steele’s had been backed by Trump’s political opponents from the FISA court.

“Far from ‘omitting’ material facts about Steele,” the memo states, “DOJ repeatedly informed the Court about Steele’s background, credibility, and potential bias.” The Department of Justice, the memo alleges, explained Steele’s financial relationship with those who had “likely political motivations” behind the dossier, and that the FBI still had reason to find Steele credible on matters relating to Russia.

The memo states that “senior FBI and DOJ officials have repeatedly affirmed to the Committee the reliability and credibility of Steele’s reporting,” and called the process to vet his allegations—including those against Page—as “rigorous.”

Nune’s memo had also claimed that the FISA materials “relied heavily” on news articles based on leaks from Steele himself, an allegation that Schiff’s memo undercuts. “DOJ referenced [the] article,” the memo states, “not to provide separate corroboration for Steele’s reporting, but instead to inform the Court of Page’s public denial of his suspected meetings in Moscow.”

In a statement, Schiff said that the release of his memo “should put to rest any concerns that the American people might have as to the conduct of the FBI, the Justice Department and the FISC.” His review, he said, “failed to uncover any evidence of illegal, unethical, or unprofessional behavior by law enforcement and instead revealed that both the FBI and DOJ made extensive showings to justify all four requests.”

In a statement to The Daily Beast, the White House labelled the Schiff memo an attempt to “undercut the President politically,” but noted that Trump still supported its release.

“This politically driven document fails to answer serious concerns raised by the Majority’s memorandum about the use of partisan opposition research from one candidate, loaded with uncorroborated allegations, as a basis to ask a court to approve surveillance of a former associate of another candidate, at the height of a presidential campaign,” said White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “As the President has long stated, neither he nor his campaign ever colluded with a foreign power during the 2016 election, and nothing in today’s memo counters that fact.”

The president had declared the release of Nunes’ memo “vindicated” his denials of any contact or collusion with the Kremlin during the 2016 presidential campaign—although multiple Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee didn’t see it that way.

“I actually don’t think it has any impact on the Russia probe,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said on CBS’ Face the Nation at the time. “There is a Russia investigation without a dossier... The dossier has nothing to do with the meeting at Trump Tower. It also doesn’t have anything to do with obstruction of justice, so there’s going to be a Russia probe with or without the dossier.”

Nunes disputed Gowdy’s assertions at the time—and the newest memo’s assertions upon its release.

“The American people now clearly understand that the FBI used political dirt paid for by the Democratic Party to spy on an American citizen from the Republican Party,” Nunes said in a statement. “It defies belief that the Department of Justice and FBI failed to provide information to a secret court that they had provided to an open federal court regarding their past interactions with Mr. Page.”
A memo written by Democrats on the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is released, countering the Republican memo released on February 2.