Trump Blocks Release of Memo Rebutting Republican Claims

Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the committee, had said earlier in the week that he feared that Mr. Trump would play politics with the dueling memos.

Mr. Schiff, who has traded bitter Twitter messages with the president after Mr. Trump called him one of “the biggest liars and leakers” in Washington, warned this week that Mr. Trump might call for “political edits” intended to erase embarrassing parts of the memo, not information related to national security.

In a statement on Friday night, Mr. Schiff said that Democrats had provided their memo to the F.B.I. and the Justice Department for vetting before it was approved for release by the committee. The Democratic memo was drawn from the same underlying documents as the Republican one.

“We will be reviewing the recommended redactions from D.O.J. and F.B.I., which these agencies shared with the White House,” Mr. Schiff said, “and look forward to conferring with the agencies to determine how we can properly inform the American people about the misleading attack on law enforcement by the G.O.P. and address any concerns over sources and methods.”

Mr. McGahn said Mr. Trump was “inclined to declassify” the Democratic memo, and encouraged the committee to make the changes that he said the Justice Department had identified as important for “national security and law enforcement interests.”

“The executive branch stands ready to review any subsequent draft of the Feb. 5 memorandum for declassification at the earliest opportunity,” Mr. McGahn wrote to the committee.

In his letter, Mr. McGahn said that Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, and the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, had identified portions of the memo for which they had “significant concerns.” Mr. McGahn referred the committee to a separate document — not released publicly — in which Mr. Wray and Mr. Rosenstein were said to provide details to the committee about those concerns.

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Spokesmen for the Justice Department did not respond Friday night to questions about the concerns that Mr. Rosenstein and Mr. Wray had reportedly expressed.

It was not immediately clear what recourse Democrats might seek against the president’s decision to hold up the release of their memo. The Democrats, led by Mr. Schiff, would need the support of Republicans, who control the committee, to force a House vote on the matter.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the top Senate Democrat, said bluntly, “Millions of Americans are asking one simple question: What is he hiding?”

Although Republicans eventually voted in favor of releasing the Democratic document after initially opposing it, their support for overriding the president to make public a document that is meant to undercut their own is another matter.

While many Republicans said their memo showed evidence of political bias in the early stages of the Russia investigation, Mr. Trump went further, claiming on Twitter last Saturday that the Republican memo “totally vindicates” him in the investigation.

After Mr. Schiff challenged Mr. Trump’s claim, the president lashed out on Twitter, calling him “Little Adam Schiff” and accusing him, without presenting any evidence, of leaving “closed committee hearings to illegally leak confidential information. Must be stopped!”

Democrats say their 10-page memo corrects key mischaracterizations and crucial omissions in the Republican case. The Republicans’ three-and-a-half-page memo focused on the F.B.I.’s use of material from a former British spy, Christopher Steele, to obtain a warrant to spy on Carter Page, the former Trump campaign official.

Mr. Steele was gathering information on possible connections between Russia and Trump associates, but the Republican memo says that the F.B.I. did not disclose to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that he was being paid by the Democratic National Committee and lawyers for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

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People familiar with the Democratic memo said that it argues that the F.B.I. was more forthcoming with the surveillance court than Republicans had claimed. It says that while the F.B.I. did not name the Democratic National Committee or Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, the bureau did disclose to the court that the information it had received from Mr. Steele was politically motivated.

Representative Devin Nunes of California, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee and the biggest champion of the Republican memo, has since conceded that the political nature of the material was included in a footnote — a fact confirmed in a letter released this week by two senior Republican senators. But Mr. Nunes said the disclosure still fell short.

Democrats also say Republicans misrepresented the words of Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy director of the F.B.I., when they said he told the committee late last year that the agency would not have sought a wiretap of Mr. Page without Mr. Steele’s dossier of information.

“One week ago, the Department of Justice and F.B.I. implored the White House not to release a deeply flawed and inaccurate memo prepared by Chairman Devin Nunes,” Mr. Schiff said in his statement. “The White House ignored their concerns and approved the publication of the Republican memo with no redactions even though the action was described by the agencies as extraordinarily reckless and omitting material facts.”

The F.B.I. suspected that Mr. Page, a former investment banker based in Moscow who had previously been under investigation, was acting as a Russian agent.

The surveillance warrant application itself remains under tight seal. The New York Times has filed a motion asking the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to unseal all materials related to the wiretap. There is no precedent for releasing such documents publicly.

Democrats had sought to release their memo at the same time the Republican one was made public, but lawmakers in the committee’s majority objected. They argued that the Democratic document first had to be shared with all members of the House and evaluated to ensure that it did not compromise national security.

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Former Trump aide Omarosa says America should be worried

Former assistant to President Donald Trump, Omarosa Newman, has made quite the debut on “Celebrity Big Brother” – warning her co-star, along with everyone else in America, that the country is in danger.

In a clip from an episode of the CBS reality show that aired Thursday, Newman’s co-star and reality TV-star Ross Matthews asks her, “Should we be worried?”

Newman nods ‘yes’ with tears in her eyes, saying “It’s not going to be OK. It’s not.”

Newman, who says she resigned in December as director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison, claims she was haunted by the president’s tweets.

“I was haunted by tweets every single day. Like, what is he going to tweet next?”

On the television program, she claims she urged the president to tone it down a notch on social media, but that White House staffers would come to his rescue.

“They would say: “Keep her away from him,’” Newman said. ‘Don’t give her access, don’t let her talk to him.’

The White House said it didn’t take her comments “very seriously.”

“Omarosa was fired three times on ‘The Apprentice,’ and this was the fourth time we let her go,” White House principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah told reporters Thursday.

Newman first became famous in 2004 starring with Trump on NBC’s “The Apprentice.” Trump invited her back for round two, this time in “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2008, only to have Trump ‘fire’ her again.

Newman has not responded since the White House comment, but did showcase a big smile in a Twitpic thanking “Celebrity Big Brother” fans for tuning in to the season premiere.

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