President Donald Trump earlier today renewed efforts to further discredit the leadership of the FBI and Department of Justice for politicizing the “sacred investigative process” into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.

White House officials told reporters earlier today that the president is set to approve the release of a controversial House Intelligence Committee memo, one that alleges that FBI and DOJ officials may have overstepped or exaggerated links between Russian operatives and the Trump campaign in order to fuel a politically motivated investigation.

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The memo was drafted by the head of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who had previously recused himself from the Trump probe after he was found to have been providing sensitive information about the ongoing investigation to the White House, last April.

Though Republicans have been flocking to news outlets in recent weeks to discuss the memo the contents of the four-page document have mostly remained shrouded in mystery as its been kept under lock and key.

Democrats and intelligence officials briefed on its contents however object to the memo’s release citing various issues over the documents accuracy. In a rare move the FBI released a statement regarding the memo stating that they have,“grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

Further complicating things, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Thursday accused Nunes of altering the document after members of the House committee had already voted to send it to the president for final approval before its release. Changes that were not approved by the full committee as protocol dictates.

On CBS This Morning, Schiff called the move by Trump to release the document an attack on law enforcement agencies. “It’s clear from the president that this is exactly the purpose behind his cherry-picking of information that Nunes wants to release,” Schiff said. “This is designed to impugn the credibility of the FBI, to undermine the investigation.”

The memo’s release comes amid concerns that Republicans will use it as a way of undermining Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference during the 2016 election.

On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called on Nunes to resign from his position as head of the House Intelligence committee.

However, Republicans backing Nunes have countered by making the issue not about the memo itself but about greater government transparency.

Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) has been one of Nunes most vocal supporters for the release of the memo. On Thursday, Meadows took to Twitter to detail the contents of the document saying that it alleges the FBI used the unverified Fusion GPS Trump dossier as evidence to obtain a warrant for surveillance on Trump’s former foreign policy adviser, Carter Page, who is currently being investigated as part of the DOJ probe.

“[Nunes] has a constitutional obligation to notify members of Congress if there has been FISA abuses. So I applaud him in that effort and really the American people need to see this and judge for themselves,” Meadows said.

 

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