President Donald Trump has read House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes’ (R-CA) memo purporting to show anti-Trump prejudice among federal law enforcement officials, the White House announced on Thursday.
A White House official confirmed to pool reporters that Trump has read the four-page memo that staffers compiled for Nunes. The House Intelligence Committee voted along party lines on Monday to release the memo, and Trump reviewed the document as the next step in the process to make the document public.
CNN reported on Thursday, citing an unnamed senior administration official, that the White House has signed off on several redactions to the document, but continues to reject requests from the FBI and the Department of Justice to block its release.
The White House will likely send the memo back to the House Friday, according to CNN, where the House Intelligence Committee is expected to determine how and when to make it public.
The Justice Department has called the release of the memo “reckless” and the FBI, in a rare public statement Wednesday, said it had “grave concerns about material omissions of fact” in the document.
After Trump completed his first official State of the Union address on Tuesday, he nevertheless told Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) that he “a hundred percent” plans to release the document. White House chief of staff John Kelly on Wednesday morning told Fox News Radio that the memo “will be released here pretty quick.”
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 for months been claiming 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.
