President Donald Trump has blamed House Democrats for his decision to not release their formal response to a GOP memo alleging misconduct by top FBI officials amid the Russia investigation.
Trump tweeted his reasoning on Saturday morning saying the response was ‘very political’ and that the lawmakers knew information in it would need to be ‘heavily redacted.’
‘The Democrats sent a very political and long response memo which they knew, because of sources and methods (and more), would have to be heavily redacted, whereupon they would blame the White House for lack of transparency,’ the president wrote on Twitter. ‘Told them to re-do and send back in proper form!’
President Donald Trump on Saturday blamed House Democrats for his decision to not release their formal response to a GOP memo
On Friday night Trump blocked the release of a classified memo written by House Intelligence Committee Democrats to rebut the Republican document that he allowed to be made public last week.
That earlier document seemingly supported the idea that the FBI and Justice Department used politically biased information to spy on a Trump campaign adviser acted with bias against Trump and Republicans in general, in the early stages of the federal probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
In refusing to release the Democratic rebuttal memo, the White House cited ‘national security concerns.’
The White House’s rejection Friday night, which came in the form of a statement from White House counsel Don McGahn, included a letter from FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that identifies ‘information for which national security or law enforcement concerns are especially significant.’
President Donald Trump on Friday blocked the release of a classified memo written by congressional Democrats to rebut a Republican document that he allowed to be made public last week. He explained why on Saturday morning. Trump is pictured on Friday
The Justice Department had identified portions of the Democratic memo that ‘would create especially significant concerns for the national security and law enforcement interests’ of the country, the Trump administration said.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said the White House move is ‘part of a dangerous and desperate pattern of cover-up on the part of the president.’
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and has read the classified information both memos are based on, tweeted that Trump’s blocking the memo is ‘hypocrisy at its worst.’
The House of Representatives Intelligence Committee voted unanimously on Monday to release the 10-page document drafted by the panel’s Democrats, but the committee could not do so unless Trump agreed to reclassify the document.
A week earlier, Trump had overruled objections from the Federal Bureau of Investigation about releasing the Republican memo that took aim at senior law enforcement officials.
Trump allowed the release of the memo, made public on February 2, which was written by the committee’s Republicans.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein tweeted that Trump’s blocking the memo is ‘hypocrisy at its worst’
President Donald Trump on Friday blocked the release of a classified memo written by congressional Democrats to rebut a Republican document that he allowed to be made public last week
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (center), R-California, standing with Rep. Peter King (left), R-New York, and Rep. Ron DeSantis (right), R-Florida, listens to a reporter’s question as he speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on October 24
White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II sent this letter to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes on Friday
Democrats said the Republican memo mischaracterized highly sensitive classified information and was intended to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of potential collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.
Mueller is also investigating whether Trump has committed obstruction of justice in trying to impede the Russia probe.
Trump met on Friday afternoon with officials from the Justice Department, White House Counsel’s Office and the FBI director, Christopher Wray, to get their input on the Democratic memo, the White House said.
‘Although the President is inclined to declassify the February 5 Memorandum, because the memorandum contains numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages, he is unable to do so at this time,’ White House Counsel Don McGahn said in a letter to Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House panel.
He asked the intelligence panel to revise the memo with the help of the Justice Department. He said Trump is still ‘inclined’ to release the memo in the interest of transparency if revisions are made.
The White House also released a letter sent to McGahn by Wray and to Rod Rosenstein, the second-ranking Justice Department official, expressing concerns about the memo’s release ‘in light of longstanding principles regarding the protection of intelligence sources and methods, ongoing investigations, and other similar sensitive information.’
The top Democrat on the intelligence panel, California Rep. Adam Schiff, criticized Trump for treating the two documents differently, saying the president is now seeking revisions by the same committee that produced the original Republican memo. Still, Schiff said, Democrats ‘look forward to conferring with the agencies to determine how we can properly inform the American people about the misleading attack on law enforcement by the GOP.’
Deputy Attorney General of the Department of Justice Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray sent this letter to White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II on Friday
President Donald Trump speaks during the National Prayer Breakfast at a hotel in Washington, DC onThursday
The Republican memo portrayed the Russia investigation as a product of political bias at the FBI and Justice Department against Trump. The president said the document ‘totally vindicates’ him in the Russia investigation, a claim disputed by Democrats and some Republicans.
Democrats last week warned Trump against using the Republican memo as a pretext to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who hired Mueller and oversees the investigation, or to remove Mueller himself.
The Republican memo singled out Rosenstein and several other officials by name, including former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey, who Trump fired in May 2017, as the agency investigated the Russia matter.
Mueller took over the investigation from the FBI.
US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential campaign using hacking and propaganda, an effort that eventually included attempting to tilt the race in Trump’s favor.
Russia denies interfering in the election. Trump denies collusion with Moscow.
Read Trump’s letter announcing that he would not reclassify the Democratic memo, below.