The House Intelligence Committee has no choice but to release a four-page Republican memo alleging Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuses by the FBI, Rep. Darrell Issa said Monday.
"Now that we know that the Democratic National Committee funded apparently a dossier, from the public reports, and that that dossier may or may not have actually led to spying on an incoming president, I think it's pretty clear the American people need to know are these allegations true or not true?" the California Republican told Fox News' "Happening Now."
The memo is an important starting point, Issa added, as "transparency is the only thing that will restore confidence."
The whole reason special counsel Robert Mueller is conducting an investigations is to determine if Russians attempted to influence the 2016 election, so it's the public right to know if the information they're receiving is "honest and appropriate" as they head to the polls to elect officials.
"It's nice to get a criminal prosecution, [but] the reality is, 320 plus million Americans need to know if they can trust the information they get, what the activities are so they can make intelligent decisions on who is to represent them and, of course, are your tax dollars being used actually to manipulate the outcome of elections or even public opinion?" said Issa. "I don't think there is any question."
However, he wants to know why Democrats wouldn't want the document to be made public, "when special prosecutor Mueller is being given tens of million of dollars to make things public that have nothing to do with the election?"
Releasing the information won't be about Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, but will be about people in charge of potential clandestine operations before President Donald Trump was sworn in, said Issa.
"People need to know what happened when something went wrong, and there is very little doubt in the Democrats' minds something went wrong, until you want to disclose everything and suddenly they don't want parts disclosed," said Issa. "The president has called for openness and transparencies. [He] put his own children up for depositions and he should be commended for that."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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