House Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Adam Schiff said Tuesday that panel Democrats will not make any revisions to their response to the Republican memo alleging surveillance abuses by the FBI and Justice Department in the Russia probe.
"We are not going to make any revisions to it," the California Democrat told reporters on Capitol Hill. "The only question is what redactions will be made.
"Obviously, we'd like to keep those to a minimum.
"The White House has a different interest," Schiff added. "Their interest is in redacting anything that doesn't reflect well in the White House."
President Donald Trump returned the Democratic response to the Intelligence Committee Friday, citing concerns about classified information contained in the 10-page document.
White House counsel Don McGahn outlined the president's concerns in a letter sent with the memo to the panel's chairman, Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, also of California.
Schiff, the panel's ranking Democrat, oversaw the response's preparation.
"Although the president is inclined to declassify the Feb. 5 memo, because the memorandum contains numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages, he is unable to do so at this time," McGahn said in his letter.
"However, given the public interest and transparency in these unprecedented circumstances, the president has directed that Justice Department personnel be available to give technical assistance to the committee."
Democrats immediately slammed Trump for invoking a "double standard" in blocking their document — and the president tweeted Saturday the legislators knew the response would need to be "heavily redacted."
The four-page Republican memo was released without redactions Feb. 2 after Trump's endorsement.
It alleged the warrant obtained from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court by the FBI to investigate former Trump campaign aide Carter Page was based on an unsubstantiated dossier of negative information on the Republican candidate.
The dossier was paid, in part, by the campaign of Democrat Hillary Clinton — and this information was never disclosed in the application for the warrant, according to the GOP memo.
Democrats countered that committee Republicans had "cherry-picked" details from the FISA application, adding that federal law enforcement officials had informed the court about the political origins of Steele's work.
They also said contended that some of Steele's information was corroborated by the FBI and other evidence was used to get the warrant.
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