House Intel Committee votes to release Democratic memo on Russia probe – By Patricia Zengerle (reuters.com) / Feb 5 2018
UPDATE: U.S. House intelligence committee top Democrat Schiff says panel has voted to release Democratic memo on Russia probe
EARLIER: A U.S. House of Representatives committee was expected to approve on Monday the release of the Democratic response to a contentious Republican memo alleging FBI bias against President Donald Trump, clearing the way for the White House to decide on the document’s release.
Aides to at least six of the 13 Republicans on the 22-member House Intelligence Committee said they expected to vote to make the Democratic memo public, enough to guarantee the majority necessary by joining with panel Democrats.
The vote would give Trump five days to decide whether to allow the memo’s release.
A week ago, every committee Republican opposed – and every Democrat favored – the Democratic memo’s release at the same meeting in which every Republican voted to release the Republican memo, despite unanimous Democratic opposition.
The Republican memo accused senior Federal Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department officials of not revealing that portions of a dossier used in seeking a court warrant to eavesdrop on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page were partly paid for by Democrats.
Committee Democrats said the four-page memo was intended to undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s criminal probe into possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.
The dispute deepened partisan rancor over congressional investigations of Russia and the 2016 U.S. election, prompting concern about lawmakers’ ability to produce unbiased reports.
House intelligence is one of three congressional committees looking into the matter, along with Mueller.
Russia denies trying to influence the election. Trump denies collusion between his campaign and Moscow.
Aides to Republican committee members Peter King, Frank LoBiondo, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Michael Turner, Trey Gowdy and Elise Stefanik said they expected to vote to release the Democrats’ memo at a meeting on Monday evening.
In a Twitter post on Monday, Trump accused U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, the top committee Democrat, of leaking “confidential” material. Schiff responded by warning Trump against “tweeting false smears.”
The White House approved the release of the Republican memo on Friday over strong objections by the FBI.
The White House said it was open to releasing the Democratic memo once it goes through the same security review as the Republican document.
Democrats worried Trump might try to use the Republican memo to make the case for firing Mueller or Rod Rosenstein, the No. 2 official at Justice, who is overseeing the Russia probe and signed off on at least one of the warrant applications for Page.
PB/TK – The balls in POTUS Donnie court, so here’s the question; in the breathe of unity of the nation will he ok the memo?
