Rep. Adam Schiff’s House Intel Minority response to the
troubling allegations of malfeasance made by the Majority is about as weak as
it gets.
This
Dem response memo does nothing to dispute the two most central, and very
troubling, claims in the Majority’s memo:
1) DOJ failed to
inform the FISA Court that the “dossier” was political oppo funded by the DNC
and Clinton campaign.
· All
Schiff et al state to dispute this point is, “DOJ in fact informed the Court
accurately that Steele was hired by politically-motivated U.S. persons and
entities and that his research appeared intended for use ‘to discredit’ Trump’s
campaign.”
· It is
STUNNING that Dems are unable to refute the fact that the FISA Court wasn’t
informed evidence presented for the basis of a warrant was gleaned from a
DNC/Clinton campaign document!
· “Appear[s]
intended for use ‘to discredit’ Trump’s campaign” Are you kidding?! It is
truly incredible if that’s all that DOJ disclosed to the Court about a
DNC/Clinton document.
2) The “dossier”
was used to obtain a FISA warrant.
· The
best the Dem memo does to dispute this point is to say DOJ made “narrow use” of
the dossier in obtaining the FISA warrant for Carter Page.
· Again,
the fact the Minority cannot outright deny that a DNC/Clinton funded document
was used to wiretap an American is extremely concerning.
· Furthermore,
the Dem memo makes no effort to dispute that Andrew McCabe testified before the
Committee that the FBI would not have sought FISA surveillance without the
dossier.
For a more thorough takedown of Rep. Schiff’s weak
sauce rebuttal memo see these resources below:
HPSCI Majority: The
Democrats Memo: Charge and Response
Complied
by the Republican National Committee.
_______________
Dems' rebuttal to GOP FISA memo is released;
Trump deems it a 'bust'
President Trump on Saturday dismissed a Democratic
rebuttal to the GOP memo outlining government surveillance abuses in the 2016
campaign as a “total political and legal bust," claiming that it only
confirms the ”terrible things” that were done by the nation’s intelligence
agencies.
The rebuttal, written by Democrats on the House
Intelligence Committee, concluded that officials at the FBI and Justice
Department “did not abuse the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)
process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the
Trump campaign.”
Democrats sought to counter claims made in a Republican
memo released this month that the FBI and DOJ relied on a Democrat-funded
anti-Trump dossier to ask the FISA court for a warrant to monitor Trump adviser
Carter Page.
Democrats have vehemently claimed that the Republican
memo left out important information.
Ranking Democrat Adam Schiff, D-Calif., countered by
saying it confirmed that intelligence officials acted appropriately.
Republicans had found that the DOJ and FBI left out
Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign funding of the
dossier, as well as the anti-Trump motivations of author and former British spy
Christopher Steele, in its request for a warrant. Indeed, Republicans have
pointed to this as proof that intelligence agencies abused surveillance powers.
The Democratic rebuttal, though it did not directly
challenge some of the key findings of the earlier one from Republicans, backed
the FBI and DOJ in their pursuit of that FISA warrant to surveil Page.
“In fact, DOJ and the FBI would have been remiss in their
duty to protect the country had they not sought a FISA warrant and repeated
renewals to conduct temporary surveillance of Carter Page, someone the FBI
assessed to be an agent of the Russian government,” the rebuttal said, adding
that the DOJ met the “rigor, transparency, and evidentiary basis” needed to
meet FISA’s probable-cause requirement.
The memo said the Page surveillance warrant produced
intelligence deemed reliable, and sufficient to justify renewals every 90 days.
The rebuttal said the FBI had an "independent
basis" for investigating Page's motivations, and that he had been targeted
for recruitment by the Russians. It also claimed that the DOJ "repeatedly
informed the Court about Steele's background, credibility, and potential
bias." And it maintained that the Justice Department infomed the FISA
court that Steele had been hired by "politically motivated U.S. persons
and entities and that his research appeared intended for use "to
discredit" Trump's campaign.
The rebuttal added that the DOJ only made "narrow
use" of information from Steele's sources and that in later FISA
renewals the DOJ provided "additional information obtained through
multiple independent sources" that backed up Steele's reporting. It
challenged the Republican assertion that the FBI authorized payment to Steele,
saying that it neglected that the payment was canceled.
The memo, however, did not directly challenge the
Republican assertion that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe testified to
the House Committee that they would not have sought the Page surveillance
warrant had it not been for that infamous dossier.
The new memo also asserted that the dossier had been
corroborated by multiple sources. However, in June 2017 testimony to the Senate
Intelligence Committee, former FBI Director James Comey said the opposite --
that three months after the warrant on Page had been granted he still
considered the dossier "unverified" and "salacious" when he
briefed incoming President Trump in January 2017 at Trump Tower.
The rebuttal was voted out of committee earlier this
month but a redraft was ordered after the White House demanded that sensitive
information be stripped out before the document be made public. The Justice
Department and FBI claimed the initial draft would reveal information about
sources and methods, ongoing investigations and other sensitive information.
Schiff said the minority's memo should "put to
rest" any concerns about conduct by the intelligence agencies.
His confidence notwithstanding, it seemed unlikely to
mark an end to the ongoing fight over the FISA application and the role of that
infamous dossier.
Indeed, while the two parties clash over whether that dossier
was a primary or secondary driver of the surveillance application, the newly
declassified criminal referral for Christopher Steele from Senators
Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said
the FBI and DOJ relied "heavily" on the controversial and salacious
document for the FISA application.
And upon the new memo's release, Republicans on the intel
committee responded with rebuttals to the rebuttal, providing more evidence that
this battle has legs. For instance, while the Democrats say that the court was
given information about the political motivations of Steele, Republicans say
that such a statement is "buried in a footnote" that obscures rather
than clarifies his motives.
“The American people now clearly understand that the FBI
used political dirt paid for by the Democratic Party to spy on an American
citizen from the Republican Party," Committee Chairman Devin Nunes,
R-Calif. said in a statement.
"Furthermore, the FISA court was misled about Mr.
Page’s past interactions with the FBI in which he helped build a case against
Russian operatives in America who were brought to justice. It defies belief
that the Department of Justice and FBI failed to provide information to a secret
court that they had provided to an open federal court regarding their past
interactions with Mr. Page," he said.
The White House called the rebuttal a "politically
driven document" that fails to answer the concerns raised by the
Republican memo.
"As the Majority’s memorandum stated, the FISA judge
was never informed that Hillary Clinton and the DNC funded the dossier that was
a basis for the Department of Justice’s FISA application," Press Secretary
Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
"In addition, the Minority’s memo fails to even
address the fact that the Deputy FBI Director told the Committee that had it
not been for the dossier, no surveillance order would have been sought,"
she added.
Democrats have claimed that the original Republican memo
was an effort to attack FBI Director Robert Mueller’s investigation into
alleged Russian interference in 2016. Trump had previously said that the memo
"totally vindicates" him in the investigation.
Fox News’ Catherine Herridge, Jennifer Bowman
and Jason Donner contributed to this report.
Adam Shaw is a Politics Reporter and
occasional Opinion writer for FoxNews.com. He can be reached here or on
Twitter: @AdamShawNY.
