Republicans on Capitol Hill are considering releasing a memo that depicts details about secret government surveillance, which they hope would lead to the appointment of a special counsel to probe allegations of a government conspiracy against President Donald Trump.
Fox News' Ed Henry reported Monday night that GOP members of Congress, including those on the House Intelligence Committee, are starting the process of making the memo available to the general public. The document reportedly contains information that discusses surveillance of the Trump campaign and how the warrant was obtained to begin that.
The thought, Henry said, is that releasing the memo would create enough of an outcry that Attorney General Jeff Sessions would have no other choice but to appoint a second special counsel to investigate the FBI and the Obama administration. Special counsel Robert Mueller is currently looking at whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.
Henry also reported that the FBI does not have the memo but would like to obtain a copy and would "take appropriate action."
It was also reported that five months worth of text messages between two FBI officials have gone missing, despite being exchanged on government-issued cell phones. Other messages between the pair that have been made public showed they were strongly against Trump winning the election. One of the officials worked on the Hillary Clinton email investigation and both worked on the Department of Justice's Russia probe.
Critics suggest there is a cover-up over the missing messages.
"It's possible that these text messages that are missing, perhaps they really were lost, perhaps it is another strange coincidence," Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, told Fox News. "The problem, Martha, is for former prosecutors like chairman [Rep. Trey] Gowdy and myself that worked at the department and worked with the FBI, it makes it harder and harder for us to explain away one really strange coincidence after another."