House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) on Thursday asked the panel’s chair to ask FBI Director Chris Wray for an “emergency” briefing to outline his concerns over the imminent release of a classified memo authored by Republican staffers that alleges an anti-Trump bias within the FBI.
In a letter to Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), the committee’s chair, Nadler called the memo a “set of talking points” that “attempt to discredit the work of the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller” and said the committee should ask Wray to make a formal or informal appearance on “an emergency basis.”
“It is imperative that we hear directly from these officials about the security and law enforcement implications of making this information public,” Nadler said. “Because many of our members have not read the underlying materials, it is also important that we hear about any inaccuracies or key omissions from the Nunes document.”
In his letter, Nadler cited statements from the Department of Justice and the FBI cautioning against the document’s release. The FBI, in a rare public statement Wednesday, said it had “grave concerns about material omissions of fact” in the document.
House Intelligence Committee Republicans voted Monday to release the memo, giving Trump five days to decide whether to release it to the public. Trump made his intentions to release the document clear after his State of the Union address Tuesday, when he was caught on a hot mic telling Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) that he “a hundred percent” plans to release it.
According to reports from multiple news outlets, the memo purports to show that FBI officials abused the FISA process when seeking a warrant to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
Trump and congressional Republicans have claimed for months that the FBI is biased against him, and CNN reported Thursday that Trump believes the memo will help discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Read the letter below:
Correction: This article originally incorrectly labeled Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) as a member of the House Intelligence Committee. He’s a ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. TPM regrets this error.
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