Democrats Respond: Synopsis of the HPSCI Minority Response to Release of Memo on Abuses in the Intelligence Agencies

By Karen O’Connor Rubsam

In response to the House Permanent Special Committee on Intelligence (“HPSCI”) memo that was released this morning, Adam Schif, the ranking minority member on the Committee released a statement

Synopsis of the HPSCI Minority Response to the Memo

The release is “a shameful effort to discredit these institutions, undermine the Special Counsel’s ongoing investigation, and undercut congressional probes. Furthermore, their refusal to allow release of a comprehensive response memorandum prepared by Committee Democrats is a transparent effort to suppress the full truth.”
The Republican document mischaracterizes highly sensitive classified information that few Members of Congress have seen, and which Chairman Nunes himself chose not to review.
The Minority memo makes clear, the FBI had good reason to be concerned about Carter Page and would have been derelict in its responsibility to protect the country had it not sought a FISA warrant
The investigation did not begin with, or arise from Christopher Steele or the dossier
As we know from Papadopoulos’ guilty plea, Russian agents disclosed to Papadopoulos their possession of stolen Clinton emails and interest in a relationship with the campaign. The Majority deliberately misstates the reason why DOJ specifically explained Russia’s role in courting Papadopoulos and the context in which to evaluate Russian approaches to Page.”
The Majority suggests that the FBI failed to alert the court as to Mr. Steele’s potential political motivations or the political motivations of those who hired him, but this is not accurate.
The GOP memo also claims that a Yahoo News article was used to corroborate Steele, but this is not at all why the article was referenced.
There are many more serious mischaracterizations set out in the Democratic response, which we will again be seeking a vote to release publicly on Monday, February 5th. Unlike Committee Republicans, however, we will ask the relevant agencies to propose any necessary redaction’s to protect any sources and methods not already disclosed by Chairman Nunes’ document.

See our original synopsis of the memo