Author of Nunes surveillance memo joining National Security Council: report

A congressional aide who helped author a Republican memo from the House Intelligence Committee accusing FBI and Justice Department officials of overstepping their surveillance authority is joining the National Security Council, CNN reported Friday. 

Kashyap Patel, a senior staffer for Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, reportedly will begin working for the National Security Council’s International Organizations and Alliances directorate on Monday.

{mosads}The National Security Council did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment.

Patel will help develop the White House’s stance toward the U.S. relationship with the United Nations and other international organizations, CNN reported. National security adviser John Bolton, a former ambassador to the U.N., has been critical of such organizations.

Patel helped pen the so-called Nunes memo, a document excoriating the FBI and Justice Department over allegedly abusing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to obtain a warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The memo alleges that the FBI and Justice Department did not inform a surveillance court that Democrats had partly funded an anti-Trump dossier that was used, in part, to obtain the warrant.

The memo also alleges that Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the dossier, did so out of hostility toward President Trump.

Patel, according to CNN, was one of two Republican committee staffers who was sent to London in 2017 to connect with Steele’s lawyers. The travel was arranged without alerting committee Democrats, CNN reported.

According to CNN, Patel helped craft the memo while working as a senior aide under then-Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). Nunes is now the House Intelligence Committee’s ranking member. 

Using the memo’s authority, the committee moved to declassify the classified information from the FISA warrant, accusing the FBI of hiding that an opposition memo compiled on Trump and Russia was allegedly funded by Democrats. Trump approved the memo’s release, despite FBI officials’ requests not to do so.

Democrats responded with a memo attempting to refute the GOP claims.