This memo totally vindicates “Trump” in probe. But the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on. Their was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead). This is an American disgrace!
CNN:
The highly controversial memo alleges that then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe told the House Intelligence Committee that no surveillance warrant would have been sought for a Trump campaign aide without a disputed opposition research dossier on Trump and Russia. The memo is the most explicit Republican effort yet to discredit the FBI’s investigation into Trump and Russia, alleging that the investigation was infused with an anti-Trump bias under the Obama administration and supported with political opposition research.
The memo tries to connect what Republicans believe was a flawed application to monitor former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page to the overall counterintelligence investigation into potential collusion between Russians and the Republican campaign.
But the memo undermines its own argument about the application being overly reliant on the dossier. It notes that the application also included information regarding Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, suggesting there was intelligence beyond the dossier in the Page application.
Finally, the FBI says that the memo has material omissions, and Democrats contest key allegations in it. Resolving this shouldn’t be difficult: The counter-memo produced by the Democrats should be released, as well as underlying material including the transcript of the interview with Andrew McCabe, which has become the subject of a he-said/he-said between committee Republicans and Democrats. Perhaps the surveillance of Page bore some fruit; if so, we should hear about it. The more information the public can get about all of this, the better.
There is speculation that President Trump might, in response to the memo, fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw one of the renewals of FISA warrants on Carter Page. Trump made one of his patented ambiguously threatening remarks about this possibility on Friday. If he were to move against Rosenstein, it might cause a semi-collapse of his Justice Department, give further fodder to Robert Mueller, and undo the political headway Republicans have made in recent weeks. Trump should sit tight and — if the investigation is as unfounded as he says — await his eventual vindication.
Former FBI Director James Comey, fired by President Trump:
That’s it? Dishonest and misleading memo wrecked the House intel committee, destroyed trust with Intelligence Community, damaged relationship with FISA court, and inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen. For what? DOJ & FBI must keep doing their jobs.
Representative Trey Gowdy (R-SC):
“I actually don’t think it has any impact on the Russia probe,” Gowdy, the House Oversight Committee chairman, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“To the extent the memo deals with the dossier and the FISA process, the dossier has nothing to do with the meeting at Trump Tower,” Gowdy said. “The dossier has nothing to do with an email sent by Cambridge Analytica. The dossier really has nothing to do with George Papadopoulos’ meeting in Great Britain. It also doesn’t have anything to do with obstruction of justice.” [via RollCall]
It’s worth noting that Gowdy recently announced he will not seek re-election, a decision insulating him from pressure by donors.
Lawfare‘s Quinta Jurecic, Shannon Togawa Mercer, and Benjamin Wittes:
But you get the point. The bottom line is that there are multiple reasons to expect that Nunes has not given a full and fair account of the FBI’s FISA process and that his memo is as factually deficient as it accuses the Carter Page warrant application of being.
and …
At the end of the day, the most important aspect of the #memo is probably not its contents but the fact that it was written and released at all. Its preparation and public dissemination represent a profound betrayal of the central premise of the intelligence oversight system. That system subjects the intelligence community to detailed congressional oversight, in which the agencies turn over their most sensitive secrets to their overseers in exchange for both a secure environment in which oversight can take place and a promise that overseers will not abuse their access for partisan political purposes. In other words, they receive legitimation when they act in accordance with law and policy. Nunes, the Republican congressional leadership and Trump violated the core of that bargain over the course of the past few weeks. They revealed highly sensitive secrets by way of scoring partisan political points and delegitimizing what appears to have been lawful and appropriate intelligence community activity.
It’s genuinely difficult to find an angle to the House Republicans’ “Nunes memo” that helps its intended beneficiary: Donald Trump. Every key argument the president and his allies hoped to advance has fallen apart, and after weeks of over-the-top hype, Republicans are actually worse off than they were before the previously classified materials were released to the public.
In fact, over the weekend, the memo’s credibility actually managed to move backward. The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal each reported independently that the FBI did, in fact, notify a FISA judge to the political motivations surrounding Christopher Steele’s dossier. (The underlying allegation from Trump’s allies is wrong — information from politically motivated sources can be used to obtain a warrant — but the underlying charge is now dubious.)
Even if you strip the Republican memo of its context and ridiculous motivations, and consider it solely as a document intended to highlight an alleged FISA court abuse, the document fails miserably.
I was not aware of FISA until I started reading Lawfare; it’s not an everyday subject around American dinner tables. Given this obscurity, this will result on partisans being led around by the noses yet again – or perhaps the weaponization of the respective bases. Beyond specialized experts, I doubt that anyone can have a truly intelligent discussion about it. Ideologues will spout off, of course, prompted by their favorite leader – but will it really lead to anything?
Only if this all goes to court or impeachment perhaps.
I am interested in the fact that some Republicans are rejecting the memo as significant, suggesting that Representative Nunes, who is responsible for the memo, may be out on a limb here. However, given his outrageous behavior as Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and yet his continued position, I do not see Speaker Ryan removing him from that prestigious seat.
Even if the prestige-meter is rapidly sinking under his leadership.
But the best analysis is probably Lawfare’s, above, as it seems quite complete and written by specialized professionals – in near-English, at that.
