President Trump on Monday praised House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) for “what he has had to endure” after the congressman led efforts to release a classified memo that accuses the Justice Department of surveillance abuses.
“Representative Devin Nunes, a man of tremendous courage and grit, may someday be recognized as a Great American Hero for what he has exposed and what he has had to endure!” Trump tweeted.
The tweet came not long after Trump launched an attack on the ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), whom the president accused of being “one of the biggest liars” in Washington.
Schiff later fired back at Trump, telling him to stop tweeting “false smears” and help “solve the funding crisis, [protect] Dreamers or…really anything else.”
Staff for Nunes authored the four-page memo, which was released Friday. It accuses senior Justice Department officials of improperly using information from the controversial “Steele dossier” — which originated as an opposition research document during the 2016 campaign — to obtain surveillance warrants on Carter Page, a member of the Trump transition team and former Trump campaign adviser.
{mosads}While Republicans, including Nunes, have argued the memo proves bias against President Trump within the Justice Department, Democrats have bashed the document as containing cherry-picked facts in an effort to undermine the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Schiff suggested Sunday that it’s possible Nunes worked with the White House in crafting the memo.
Democrats have called for the House Intelligence Committee to release the party’s countermemo, which reportedly addresses claims in the Republican document. The committee is expected to vote Monday on the Democratic memo.