The battle of the memo continues. On Saturday morning, Donald Trump explained on Twitter that he won’t be releasing the democratic memo written by Democratic House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Adam Schiff unless it’s in “proper form.” The memo is a rebuttal of the memo that was released by Republican Chairman Devin Nunes.
“The Democrats sent a very political and long response memo which they knew, because of sources and methods (and more), would have to be heavily redacted, whereupon they would blame the White House for lack of transparency,” he tweeted. “Told them to re-do and send back in proper form!”
The Democrats sent a very political and long response memo which they knew, because of sources and methods (and more), would have to be heavily redacted, whereupon they would blame the White House for lack of transparency. Told them to re-do and send back in proper form!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 10, 2018
Trump’s actions and behavior regarding the memo are hypocritical, to say the least. Recall, on Friday he said it would be released “soon.”
“It’s gonna be released soon,” Trump told reporters at the White House, adding, “We’re going to release a letter.”
Recall again, prior to the Nunes memo, the FBI urged him not to release it.
“With regard to the House Intelligence Committee’s memorandum, the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it,” a statement from the FBI said. “As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”
Suddenly when it comes to the democratic memo, accuracy matters to Trump?
His unwillingness to be fair and cooperate with the democratic memo is indeed aiding a backlash. Rep. Schiff tweeted about Trump’s hypocrisy on Saturday.
“Mr. President, what you call ‘political’ are actually called facts, and your concern for sources and methods would be more convincing if you hadn’t decided to release the GOP memo (“100%”) before reading it and over the objections of the FBI,” Schiff tweeted.
After ignoring urging of FBI & DOJ not to release misleading Nunes memo because it omits material facts, @POTUS now expresses concerns over sharing precisely those facts with public and seeks to send it back to the same Majority that produced the flawed Nunes memo to begin with: pic.twitter.com/qNVyS99eXs
— Adam Schiff (@SenAdamSchiff) February 10, 2018
Other lawmakers have chimed in sharing similar sentiments too.
Congressman Ted Lieu, D-Calif., tweeted that he thinks Trump is “intentionally hiding relevant information from the American people in order to mislead the public.”
THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS. Both GOP & Dems voted to release Dem memo. I read it and am convinced @realDonaldTrump is now intentionally hiding relevant information from the American people in order to mislead the public. An innocent person would not block the memo.#ReleaseTheDemMemo https://t.co/f2bCtid8DQ
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) February 10, 2018
Senator Bob Casey said it’s clear Trump released the Nunes memo to attack law enforcement.
It’s now clear that @realDonaldTrump released the Nunes memo to attack our law enforcement, further obstruct the Mueller investigation and mislead the American people. What happened to transparency?
— Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) February 10, 2018
