“[Dems] have continued to leak out bits and pieces of info to create narratives that have only one thing in common – they’re always false” –@DevinNunes pic.twitter.com/6eLaDzgcCr
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) February 5, 2018
Friday saw the release of the infamous “Nunes” memo, which detailed how the FBI used opposition research funded by Democrats to get a FISA warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Still, contrary to what that document said, the feds apparently told judges about the political background. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-California 22nd District), chairman of the House intel committee, said as much in an interview Monday, but he downplayed the significance of this “footnote.”
“A footnote saying that something might be political is a far cry from letting the American people know that the Democrats and the Hillary campaign paid for dirt that the FBI then used to get a warrant on an American citizen to spy on another campaign,” he told Fox & Friends.
The feds used the so-called Trump dossier as probable cause to get the warrant, the memo states, and in neither the initial application nor the renewals did investigators disclose the political origin of the allegations.
Nunes didn’t elaborate on the wording of this footnote, or what it precisely detailed.
“You know the rules: We don’t talk about committee business,” Nunes tells us as he left the meeting. We reminded him he talked to Fox Friday and Monday. No response
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) February 5, 2018
Page stepped down from the Trump campaign in September 2016 amid allegations that he met with Russians to discuss lifting U.S. sanctions if Trump won the election (Page denied those ties). A special counsel is investigating whether the campaign colluded with Russian-directed cyberattacks to help Trump win the 2016 election.
The House intel committee voted Monday to release a competing memo by Democrats. That will now be sent to the White House for approval. The FBI said the Nunes memo omitted facts, but the agency’s statement, obtained by Law&Crime, did not elaborate on what those missing facts were.
[Image via Win McNamee/Getty Images]
