Democrat Rep Nadler on the Nunes Memo.
NBC News -
Democratic rebuttal calls Nunes memo âdeliberately misleadingâ
WASHINGTON â A top House Democrat is challenging the core conclusion of the memo released by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes on Friday, calling the allegation that the Justice Department and FBI withheld key details as they sought a secret surveillance warrant on former Trump adviser Carter Page âdeliberately misleading and deeply wrong on the law.â
NBC News has exclusively obtained a six-page rebuttal to the Nunes memo from Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, which was to be circulated to all House Democrats on Saturday.
Given his senior position, Nadler is one of the small number of lawmakers who has viewed the highly sensitive documents that are the basis of Nunesâ memo.
The rebuttal focuses on four key points having to do with the legal underpinnings of the GOP-produced document:
- That Nunesâ memo fails to demonstrate that the government lacked enough evidence beyond a dossier from former British spy Christopher Steele to obtain a FISA warrant on Page.
- That Steeleâs expertise on Russia and organized crime would have outweighed any concerns a FISA court would have had about the funding of Steeleâs work by partisan actors â funding sources that Steele may not have even known about.
- That Nunesâ memo âprovides no credible basis whatsoeverâ for removing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller.
- That Nunesâ memo shows that Republicans âare now part and parcel to an organized effort to obstructâ Muellerâs probe.
Nadlerâs legal analysis represents Democratsâ most detailed public response to the Nunes memo, released Friday after President Donald Trump agreed to its declassification over the objections of his own FBI Director.
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