What We Know So Far About the Nunes Memo and the FBI’s Response
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There’s been a lot of chatter this week about the memo penned by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and on Wednesday, the FBI issued a remarkable statement. The already-unprecedented firestorm surrounding the memo doesn’t stop there, as today, Rep. Adam Schiff claimed Nunes “made material changes” to the memo he sent to President Trump.
On Wednesday, the FBI’s statement pushed back on the release of a partisan congressional memo alleging the Bureau used improper evidence to obtain legal permission to surveil a Trump campaign adviser. “[T]he FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it,” the Bureau said. “As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”
The memo has created a huge controversy, despite it not being released yet. Nunes fired back at the FBI hours later, claiming, “It’s clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counterintelligence investigation during an American political campaign.”
Democrats on the committee were unanimously against its release, asserting that its claims of wrongdoing are unfounded and its release endangers our national security. In fact, Trump’s own Justice Department objected to its release as “extraordinarily reckless.”