Democrats release their declassified rebuttal to the Nunes memo

Alex Brandon/AP

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee stands next to a photograph of President Donald Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 17, 2017.

The House Intelligence Committee on Saturday released the Democratic rebuttal to the so-called Nunes memo.

The Democratic memo was drafted after Rep. Devin Nunes, the committee's chairman, first authored a memo alleging that the Department of Justice and FBI overstepped their surveillance authority when applying for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant targeting Carter Page, a former adviser to President Donald Trump's campaign.

The Democratic memo was compiled by committee ranking member Adam Schiff. The White House counsel Don McGahn said in a letter to the committee earlier this month that Trump was unable to declassify it because of "numerous properly classified and sensitive passages." The White House directed the Justice Department to assist the committee in making changes that would facilitate the document's release.

Trump's response to the Democratic memo differed significantly from his response to the Nunes memo, which he declassified without redactions shortly after it was sent to the White House.

Among other things, the Democratic memo accuses Nunes of cherry-picking information to misrepresent the intelligence community's work and discredit the FBI's investigation into Russia's election interference.

It addition to accusing the FBI and DOJ of omitting "relevant and material" facts from their FISA application targeting Page, the Nunes memo also said former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said in his testimony last year that the Page warrant would not have been sought without information contained in the Steele dossier, an explosive and unverified collection of memos alleging collusion between Trump and Russia.

The Democratic memo focuses mainly on pushing back against the Nunes memo's characterization of McCabe's testimony and its claim that the dossier was the sole basis for the Page FISA application. It also disputes Republican claims that the DOJ and FBI concealed critical information about the dossier's funding from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) when submitting the Page FISA application.

This story is developing. Check back for updates. 

Read the memo: