The House Intelligence Committee voted on the release of the FISA memo. By a party-line vote, the committee voted to release it publicly.
The next thing that needs to be done is the vote has to presented to Trump and he has five days to object to its release. If he doesn’t the memo will be released. Of course, President Trump could immediately okay the release and it could be released immediately.
The memo written by Rep Devin Nunes gleaned from information turned over to Congress is said to be pure dynamite and shows massive abuse of power by a number of people. Several GOP reps who have read the memo seem genuinely shocked by the contents.
Democrats are on damage control overdrive, led by A Dam Schiffless. He is claiming that the Republican report misconstrues the facts. It’s true that Strzok called Trump an idiot but Schiffless says he meant in the nicest way.
Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the committee, told reporters that the committee voted to release the memo but voted against making the Democratic analysis of it public, at least for now. And he said Republicans on the committee have officially launched an investigation of the FBI and the Justice Department.
“Today, you saw a vote to politicize the process,” Schiff said. “It’s a sad day in the history of the committee.”
A Trump administration official told NBC News it was unclear whether the Justice Department would have any say in what parts of the memo would be blacked out to protect sensitive sources and methods. FBI Director Christopher Wray traveled to the Capitol Sunday to read the memo, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told NBC News. But it’s not clear whether he was able to take a copy with him when he left.
The memo is said to name names, some of which will probably include James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and possibly a couple of others and could prove that the FBI used the bogus Trump dossier to get FISA warrants.