President Donald Trump has called Rep. Adam Schiff a ‘total phony’ and fired back at the new Democrat memo justifying the FBI’s methods to obtain wiretaps on a former Trump campaign advisor.
Trump approved the release of the memo, which defends the FBI’s applications to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court warrants to conduct surveillance of Carter Page, saying that British former spy Christopher Steele’s ‘dirty dossier’ was only part of the information used in the applications.
‘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 on Saturday night.
Schiff, the US House Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, responded: ‘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.’
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Trump has called Rep. Adam Schiff (right) a ‘total phony’ and fired back at the new Democrat memo justifying the FBI’s methods to obtain wiretaps on a former Trump campaign advisor
‘This whole Witch Hunt is an illegal disgrace…and Obama did nothing about Russia!,’ Trump said in another tweet.
Trump wasted no time singling out Schiff, whose Congressional district includes Burbank, California.
Quoting Fox News, the President wrote: ‘Congressman Schiff omitted and distorted key facts.’ Trump added, ‘So, what else is new. He is a total phony!’
Schiff responded: ‘Wait a minute, Mr. President. Am I a phony, or sleazy, a monster or little? Surely you know the key to a good playground nickname is consistency. I thought you were supposed to be good at this.’
The new memo asserted several key points, including that the FBI presented the FISA court with other evidence than the Steele dossier, which was compiled on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
The memo also said that the FBI began investigating Page’s ties to Russia seven weeks before receiving the Steele dossier.
The new memo also states that the warrant applications ‘did not otherwise rely on Steel’s reporting, including any “salacious” allegations about Trump, and the FBI never paid Steele for this reporting.’
The new Democrat memo also asserts that FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page (no relation to Carter), whose anti-Trump text messages were revealed after they were removed from the Mueller probe, did not sign the affidavits used to obtain the surveillance warrants.
Also newly revealed in the memo is information about the four FISA court judges who approved the wiretap application and subsequent renewals. All were appointed by Republican presidents: two by George W. Bush, and one each by George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.
Devin Nunes, the architect of the Republican memo, also criticized the Democratic rebuttal.
‘What you’re not gonna see is anything that actually rejects what was in our memo,’ which aimed to show ‘that FISA abuse had occurred,’ Nunes said at an annual Republican conference.
Democrats ‘are advocating that it’s OK for the FBI and DOJ to use political dirt paid for by one campaign and use it against the other campaign,’ he said.
‘In the United States of America, that is unacceptable.’