House Intelligence Committee to vote Monday on releasing Dems’ countermemo

The House Intelligence Committee on Monday will consider whether to declassify a Democratic memo that counters a recently released Republican-crafted document alleging bias within the Justice Department.

The panel’s Republicans have scheduled a meeting for Monday night, and a committee source said they anticipate that there will be a vote on releasing the Democratic rebuttal memo.

If the committee approves releasing the Democratic memo, it will be sent to President Trump, who will then have to approve or object to its release.

Some committee Republicans have expressed a willingness to declassify the Democratic memo and make it public, but not before it is vetted.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday that Trump should agree to release the Democratic document, calling it a matter of “fundamental fairness.”

The four-page Republican memo, released Friday, accuses senior Justice Department officials of improperly using information from the so-called Steele dossier — which originated as an opposition research document during the 2016 campaign — to obtain surveillance warrants on Carter Page, a member of the Trump transition team and former Trump campaign adviser. 

{mosads}Some Republicans and Trump have pointed to the memo as proof the Justice Department’s Russia investigation is biased against the president. Trump tweeted Saturday morning that the document “totally vindicates” him.

Democrats, however, have bashed the memo as misleading, saying it contains cherry-picked claims to undermine the ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Moscow.

Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee crafted a memo of their own, based on the same classified documents the Republicans used, which they say will provide more context and fill in omissions in the Republican document.

“What we are going to learn if and when the Democratic memo is released, what we will learn is that it is not true that this [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] warrant was awarded solely on the basis of the Steele dossier. We will also learn that the FBI, because they’re very careful people, didn’t mislead the judge,” committee member Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) said Sunday morning.

-Olivia Beavers contributed to this report which was updated at 1:26 p.m.