The powers that be have redacted and released the House Intelligence Committee Democrats’ memo rebutting the committee Republicans’ four page memo. In a quick reading, among other things, I find it rebutting claims that weren’t made. The Democrats vouch for the credibility of Christopher Steele when the only relevant question is the credibility of his sources. The Democrats also challenge just about every point made by the Republicans.
The Democrats are overinvested in the synthetic collusion scandal. They stand by all the works of the Department of Justice and the FBI. To borrow a phrase attributed by Susan Rice to President Obama, they did everything strictly by the book. According to the Democrats, Carter Page deserves what he got. One wonders how it is that he remains a free man.
There is some new information provided. The FISA warrant on Carter Page was authorized and renewed three times by four different federal judges (see page 3). In a heavily redacted portion of the memo, the Democrats go to town on Page (pages 3-5). I infer from guarded comments made to the press by committee Republicans that there may be something to this. Chairman Nunes has released the statement below.
Nunes Statement on Release of Democrat Memo with point by point refutation. https://t.co/JjXyslktSz pic.twitter.com/P7UaGEQVsE
— Nick Short 🇺🇸 (@PoliticalShort) February 24, 2018
There is much more that could be said. We badly need the FISA warrant application and related representations in renewal proceedings redacted and released. As always, I urge interested readers to review the documents with your own eyes. I have uploaded the memo to Scrbd and embedded it below.
House Dems' Intel Memo by Scott Johnson on Scribd
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