The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee on Saturday responded to President Trump calling the release of the Democratic memo rebutting claims made by Republicans on the committee a “total political and legal bust.”
In his response, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told the president that his memo confirmed the FBI “acted appropriately” in its handling of the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.{mosads}
“Wrong again, Mr. President. It confirms the FBI acted appropriately and that Russian agents approached two of your advisors, and informed your campaign that Russia was prepared to help you by disseminating stolen Clinton emails,” Schiff responded.
Schiff’s statement comes after the president claimed in a tweet that his memo confirmed the “illegal” conduct Trump has alleged the FBI committed when the bureau opened its investigation into members of his campaign, such as former aide Carter Page.
“The Democrat memo response on government surveillance abuses is a total political and legal BUST. Just confirms all of the terrible things that were done. SO ILLEGAL!” Trump tweeted.
Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee released their memo Saturday after days of negotiation with the White House and the Justice Department over redacting classified material from the final release.
In the memo, Democrats say the FBI’s investigation into Page and the Trump campaign was not prompted by an unverified dossier created by ex-British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, and was rather a result of multiple credible leads.
The Democratic version also accuses the Republican committee chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.), of not reading underlying classified documents that they say were not made available to other House members and contradicted the claims made in his memo.