Nunes memo
Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee prepared a classified 10 page rebuttal of claims in the Nunes memo, which was initially blocked for release.[25] However, the FBI's application for a FISA warrant did describe, in a footnote, the origins and political background of the dossier,[28] a fact conceded by Nunes and other Republican leaders on February 5, after the memo's release."[33] Other members of the House Intelligence Committee and sources close to the matter have stated that the Nunes memo "misquoted" and "mischaracterized" McCabe's testimony, which was given in private and has not been made public.It also says the FBI's Russia investigation was opened nearly three months before the FISA surveillance application[25] in late July 2016 by Peter Strzok, who is accused of having "a clear bias against Trump and in favor of Clinton.[39][40][41][42] News accounts in 2017 indicated that because of the nature of his ties to Russia, Page had been under FBI scrutiny and had already been the subject of a FISA warrant in 2014, at least two years before the Trump campaign.[46] The memo was produced by a small group of House Republicans and staff, led by Devin Nunes, as part of an investigation into how the FBI used the Steele dossier.[16][15][17] Clint Watts, one of the founding researchers of ASD, said the social media campaign started trending after Julian Assange advocated for the memo's release, which was then repeated by Russian influence networks.In a May 2016 meeting in London, Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos told the Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Alexander Downer, that the Russians possessed "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of hacked emails.[71] On July 8, Page emailed Trump campaign officials about his presentation at the New Economic School in Moscow and described meeting Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich.He said Dvorkovich "expressed strong support for Mr. Trump and a desire to work together toward devising better solutions in response to the vast range of current international problems.[73] The Steele dossier alleges that in July, Carter Page secretly met Rosneft chairman Igor Sechin in Moscow, together with a "senior Kremlin Internal Affairs official, DIVYEKIN"; that Sechin offered Trump a 19% stake in Rosneft (worth about $11 billion) in exchange for lifting the sanctions against Russia after his election,[74][75] and that Page confirmed, on Trump's "full authority", that he intended to lift the sanctions.[81][20][10] Shortly after the release of the memo, Time magazine reported that in 2013, Carter Page bragged about being an "informal adviser to the Kremlin" in a letter to the editor.[83] Republicans posited that politically motivated FBI employees attempted to undermine the Trump presidency, citing the Steele dossier, which they say was an essential part of the evidence used for obtaining a FISA warrant to wiretap Page.[84][9] According to this argument, the FBI did not disclose to the FISA court that their request for a warrant depended on evidence in the Steele dossier, a document funded by the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee; according to this line of argument, Rod Rosenstein, Trump's Deputy Attorney General, knew of the funding from Democrats, and his approval of an application that failed to disclose that fact potentially implies that Rosenstein harbors some form of anti-Trump bias.[85] Attorney Marc Elias then hired Fusion GPS on behalf of his clients, the Democratic National Committee and the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, to continue this research and compile what would become the Steele dossier.Shortly after becoming a trending topic, the memo drew polarizing reactions from government officials and the media, and generally along party lines for lawmakers.[92] The Republicans voted against making public the competing memo Democrats had crafted, and rejected a proposal to give the Justice Department and FBI more time to vet the document.He reportedly told close advisers that he believed the memo would reveal the FBI's bias against him, and provide grounds for him to fire Rod Rosenstein.Schumer said that the memo aimed to spread "conspiracy theories" and attacked federal law enforcement in order to protect Trump from investigation.Nadler, who reviewed the classified material used to obtain the FISA warrant, called the memo "deliberately misleading and deeply wrong on the law.""[114][115] Adam Schiff has stated that the "Nunes memo is designed to ... ["put the government on trial"] by furthering a conspiracy theory that a cabal of senior officials within the FBI and the Justice Department were so tainted by bias against President Donald Trump that they irredeemably poisoned the investigation.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.[129] Paul Rosenzweig, former Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and former Whitewater investigator, has analyzed the Nunes memo and explained several reasons for why he believes "it makes no sense", is "not a serious effort at oversight", and "fails to make its case": the timing of the FISA warrant shows that any findings would first have come to light after the election and thus could not have affected it; Carter Page was no longer a member of the Trump campaign at the time of the application; it ignores that Page was under FISA surveillance as early as 2013 because of his proven Russian connections; the attempt to tie the October FISA application to Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein is flawed because Rosenstein was a U.S. attorney for the district of Maryland at the time and had nothing to do with that application; the memo "uses language that is intended to create a misimpression" by implying that the Steele dossier was central to the FISA application, when it was only a part of it; and that the memo "tries to bury" its "admission deep in the document", in the final paragraph, that the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections was not triggered by the Steele dossier but by information from Trump advisor Papadopoulos.
U.S. RepresentativeDevin NunesHouse Intelligence CommitteeFederal Bureau of InvestigationCarter Pagethe FBI's investigationRussian interference in the 2016 United States electionsSteve BannonDonald Trump presidencySteele dossierClinton campaignDemocratic National CommitteeSpecial Counsel investigationTwitterU.S. Intelligence Communityredactprobable causeChristopher SteeleYahoo! NewsMichael IsikoffBruce OhrBill PriestapAndrew McCabeGeorge PapadopoulosHillary ClintonPeter StrzokFISA warrant in 2014ranking memberPeter KinghashtagAlliance for Securing DemocracyClint WattsJulian AssangeWikisourceRussian spiesAustralian High Commissioner to the United KingdomAlexander DownerTrump campaignNew Economic SchoolArkady DvorkovichRosneftIgor Sechinsanctions against RussiaGood Morning AmericaTrump presidencyHillary Clinton presidential campaignRod RosensteinFusion GPSPaul SingerThe Washington Free BeaconNever Trump movementMarc Elias2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaignparty linesJustice DepartmentChristopher WrayAdam SchiffMichael E. HorowitzInspector GeneralForeign Intelligence Surveillance CourtColumbia Journalism ReviewWhite House CounselDon McGahnPaul RyanTrey GowdyHouse Minority LeaderNancy PelosiSenate Minority LeaderChuck SchumerSteny HoyerJerry NadlerHouse Judiciary Committeeagent of a foreign powerDeputy Attorney GeneralSaturday night massacreArchibald CoxRichard NixonWatergate scandalGlenn GreenwaldJames ComeyMeet the PressCIA directorJohn O. Brennanabuse of powerSheldon WhitehouseJane MayerWhitewaterAndrew McCarthyDismissal of James ComeyLinks between Trump associates and Russian officials and spiesTrump Tower wiretapping allegationsInspector General report on the Crossfire Hurricane investigationThe New York TimesThe InterceptNewsweekThe Washington PostReutersVarietyThe NationThe AtlanticLos Angeles TimesThe Washington ExaminerThe GuardianPoliticoBusiness InsiderThe IndependentVanity FairNBC NewsCBS NewsBloomberg.comHaaretzKris, DavidDNC cyber attacksFancy BearGuccifer 2.0SVR RFCozy BearDCCC cyber attacksDNC email leakPodesta emailsWikiLeaksDCLeaksPizzagate conspiracy theorySocial mediaCambridge AnalyticaFake news websites