Nunes: Democratic Rebuttal Doesn't Prove Much

The Democratic rebuttal released Saturday by a House panel doesn’t include any material “that actually rejects what was actually in our memo,” Rep. Devin Nunes, author of the Republican memo that alleged bias in the handling of the Russia probe by the Justice Department and FBI, said at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

"What you’re not going to see is anything that actually rejects what was actually in our memo," said Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

President Donald Trump initially blocked the release of the Democratic memo, which says the FBI and Justice Department were entirely justified in obtaining a warrant to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser suspected of being an agent of Russia, but reversed course after redactions were made.

"FBI and DOJ officials did not 'abuse' the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, nor subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign," the Democratic memo argues. "In fact, DOJ and the FBI would have been remiss in their duty to protect the country had they not sought a FISA warrant and repeated renewals to conduct temporary surveillance of Carter Page, someone the FBI assessed to be an agent of the Russian government. DOJ met the rigor, transparency, and evidentiary basis needed to meet FISA's probable cause requirement..."

Nunes, a Republican from California, said the Democratic memo proves his points.

"The American people now clearly understand that the FBI used political dirt paid for by the Democratic Party to spy on an American citizen from the Republican Party," Nunes said in a statement. "Furthermore, the FISA court was misled about Mr. Page's past interactions with the FBI in which he helped build a case against Russian operatives in America who were brought to justice. It defies belief that the Department of Justice and FBI failed to provide information to a secret court that they had provided to an open federal court regarding their past interactions with Mr. Page."

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