Rep. Pete King Thursday acknowledged there was a change between a controversial GOP memo about the FBI that President Donald Trump got from the House Intelligence Committee and the one committee members voted on, but he said the change did not change the document's substance.
"My understanding is, and this was agreed on beforehand among Republicans, there's one small part in the memo which in no way affects the substance of the memo," the New York Republican, a committee member, told CNN "New Day" host Chris Cuomo.
"It involves a fact, which has been publicly acknowledged by everyone, but for protocol reasons the FBI asked that that be taken out."
King said he believes the alteration is "three or four words," but "in no way does it affect the substance of the memo or anything at all."
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., alleged Wednesday that the memo, which House members have been reviewing for weeks, has been secretly altered and is not the same version the White House is currently reviewing,
"It is clear that the Majority made material changes to the version it sent to the White House, which Committee members were never apprised of, never had the opportunity to review, and never approved," Schiff wrote to Rep. Devin Nunes, who chairs the committee.
On Monday, Republicans on the committee voted to release the document, which accuses the Department of Justice and FBI of misusing their authority to get a secret surveillance order on one of Trump's former campaign aides. Trump has up to five days from when he received the memo to agree whether to allow it to be released publicly.
King further complained on Thursday that the FBI and the Justice Department "stonewalled" the Intelligence Committee for "months and months" over the material, coming from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) the FBI allegedly used to obtain its warrant.
He also told Cuomo that when the memo was made available to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Sunday, "they could find nothing wrong with it."
On Monday, the committee had its top two investigators sit with the top people in the FBI to go through the memo word-for-word, said King, and "we did not find one factual discrepancy, no national security risk. Those are the facts."
The wording that was changed because of a protocol reason, he added, not for a factual error.
On Wednesday, the FBI said in a statement that it had grave concerns over the document, but King said that's because the memo's conclusion criticizes the FBI.
"That's what this is all about," he said. "They've refused to cooperate with us all along.