Top Dem issues rebuttal to GOP memo

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) has issued a rebuttal to a memo alleging the FBI used the unverified dossier on President Trump in part to secure a surveillance warrant for Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, NBC News reports.

“Carter Page was, more likely than not, an agent of a foreign power. The Department of Justice thought so. A federal judge agreed. The consensus, supported by the facts, forms the basis of the warrant issued,” Nadler writes in the rebuttal of the memo orchestrated by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)

{mosads}“The Nunes memo alleges nothing that would even come close to meeting this standard,” he continued, referencing arguments that the warrant should be voided. 

According to NBC, Nadler’s rebuttal says the memo does not show the government lacked evidence to get a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on Page and that former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, who compiled the dossier, had knowledge on Russia that would have trumped concerns a FISA court would have about the funding of the dossier. 

The dossier was funded in part by former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee. 

Nadler said the Nunes memo “provides no credible basis whatsoever” for removing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and shows Republicans “are now part and parcel to an organized effort to obstruct” special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia’s election meddling. 

Nunes’s memo, which was made public on Friday, says the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump campaign officials had improper contacts with Russia was triggered by information the bureau obtained about former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos. 

Allies of Trump had previously said it was the dossier that triggered the probe. 

The memo alleges that the FBI used the dossier, in part, to obtain surveillance warrants for Page after the counterintelligence probe began.