Republicans release secret surveillance memo
Opinion is divided over how much damage the four-page document declassified by Donald Trump has actually done.
FBI chief Christopher Wray has hit back at the release of a memo declassified by Donald Trump as debate rages over how much damage the four-page document has actually done.
FBI Director Christopher Wray wrote a letter of support to staff in response to the much-hyped memo, which claims the FBI and Department of Justice allegedly abused federal surveillance practices during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“Talk is cheap,” Mr Wray wrote to staff in an internal missive obtained by the BBC. “The work you do is what will endure.”
“We’re going to keep doing that work, because we know who and what we are, and because we know that our mission comes first,” Wray said. “The American people come first.”
Mr Wray — whose job is said to now be hanging in the balance over the matter — also promised to “defend your integrity and professionalism every day.”
FBI Director Chris Wray has sent a rally-the-troops letter to FBI employees after today's Memo madness... pic.twitter.com/k2COdEaiCv
— Anthony Zurcher (@awzurcher) February 2, 2018
The memo was compiled by House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes’s staff and declassified for release by President Trump in an apparent bid to discredit the FBI as it investigates potential ties between Russia and Mr Trump’s 2016 election campaign.
The Republican-authored memo allegedly shows improper use of surveillance by the FBI in the initial stages of the investigation.
“What is happening in our country is a disgrace,” Mr Trump said of the memo’s contents. “A lot of people should be ashamed of themselves, and much worse than that.”
The FBI, Justice Department and Democrats had furiously lobbied Mr Trump to stop the memo’s release, saying it could harm national security and mislead the public.
However, not all are convinced it is as damning as first billed.
Democrats say the memo is a “dud” and an “outright bust” that won’t undermine the Russia probe, while some pundits have gone as far as calling it a “nothingburger”.
“Republicans have overplayed their hand, and they have created a frenzy about this memo,” Democrat senator Jackie Speier, a member of the House intelligence committee, told Politico.
“Because the person who is a person of interest here is the president of the United States and in his mind this was going to derail the investigation. It’s not going to derail the investigation.”
Former FBI director James Comey, famously sacked by Mr Trump, said it didn’t add up to much.
“That’s it?” Comey wrote on Twitter on Friday. “Dishonest and misleading memo wrecked the House intel committee, destroyed trust with Intelligence Community, damaged relationship with FISA court, and inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen. For what?”
FBI UNDER FIRE
The FBI has been accused of failing to mention that Democratic-funded sources led to an application for surveillance of a Trump adviser, Carter Page, during the 2016 election.
The claim is contained on an explosive memo which was released today after Donald Trump declassified it despite the US Federal Bureau of Investigation saying it had ‘‘grave concerns’’ about its accuracy.
The memo, written by Republican chairman of the US House of Representatives intelligence committee Devin Nunes, makes a series of claims that the FBI and Justice Department failed to provide full information to a court when requesting surveillance powers against Mr Page in late 2016.
The FBI has said the memo was inaccurate because it omitted important information which was relevant to the events at the time.
The opposition Democrats have called its release a politically motivated attempt to undermine the current Russia investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The memo says an application by the FBI and Justice Department for a warrant to wiretap Mr Page over his links to Russian officials came from a dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.
However it says the FBI and the Justice Department failed to mention in their application that Mr Steele was at that time working for a company that was being paid by Democrats to conduct research on the then-presidential candidate Mr Trump.
The memo says that Mr Steele’s information was the key basis for the warrant application and that the FBI therefore misled the judge in failing to provide a full account of the circumstances surrounding the application.
Mr Trump yesterday tweeted: “The top leadership and investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicised the sacred investigative process in favour of Democrats and against Republicans — something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. Rank and File are great people.’’
When Mr Trump was asked if he might fire Deputy Attorney-General Rod Rosenstein over the issue, he said: “You figure that one out.’’
“I think it’s a disgrace what’s happening in our country,” Mr Trump said. “A lot of people should be ashamed of themselves and much worse than that.”
The US house on Friday US time released the Republican Party memo alleging surveillance abuses against Mr Page that the document’s authors say raise serious questions about decisions made by law enforcement during and after the 2016 presidential campaign.
The release of the highly anticipated memo, which house members have had access to since January 18, has become a political and national-security fight, with the FBI this past week citing “grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy”.
Democrats have said the four-page document is full of omissions and cherry-picked facts designed to throw doubt on the investigation into collusion between Mr Trump associates and Russia.
The memo says surveillance against Mr Page — approved by a secret federal court in the fall of 2016 — was based on information that Justice Department and FBI officials got from work performed by Mr Steele.
Mr Steele was hired to look into Mr Trump’s ties to Russia, first by Republican sources during the primary and later by intermediaries of the Democratic Party.
The information he gathered, which he used to produce a raw intelligence document, was an essential basis for the warrant on Mr Page, the memo says.
But the memo says neither the initial warrant application, nor subsequent ones that allowed surveillance of Mr Page to continue, disclosed that the Steele information came from his having been paid by Democratic intermediaries.
Law enforcement officials obtained at least three renewals of warrants on Mr Page after the initial one in October 2016.
At least two of those renewals occurred while Mr Trump was President and at least one was authorised by a Justice Department official he appointed.
Officials appointed by both Mr Trump and former president Barack Obama were involved in approving the applications for surveillance warrants on Mr Page.
Mr Page has been on the radar of US intelligence since 2013 when Russian spies made an attempt to recruit him. He hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing.
Representatives for Mr Steele didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr Trump, who authorised the release of the memo on Friday, told reporters in the Oval Office ahead of its release: “I sent it over to congress. They’re going to do whatever they do.”
The memo is drawn from highly classified Justice Department and FBI documents. A handful of top staff and members of congress won access to those records in early January, over the objection to Justice officials who appealed directly to house speaker Paul Ryan that they were too sensitive to be shared with the legislature.
Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia.
With The Wall Street Journal and agencies
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