House Intelligence Committee Republicans voted Monday night to release Chairman Devin Nunes' (R-CA) highly controversial memo, in spite of a Department of Justice warning that doing so without professional review would pose a threat to national security and ongoing investigations.
NYT:
The vote, made along party lines, threw fuel on an already fiery partisan conflict over the investigations into Russia’s brazen meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Republicans invoked a power never before used by the secretive committee to effectively declassify the memo that they had compiled. Democrats called the three-and-a half-page document a dangerous effort to build a narrative to undercut the department’s ongoing Russia investigation, using cherry-picked facts assembled with little or no context.
What comes next was less clear. Under the obscure House rule invoked by the committee, President Trump now has five days to review the document and decide whether to try to block it from going public. The White House has repeatedly indicated that it wants the memo out, but Mr. Trump’s Justice Department had been working to slow or block its release.
Democrats, voting as a block, tried to advance a series of motions they said would help put the Republican memo in context. All but one of those motions failed along party lines. The committee did make a Democratic memo rebutting the Republican version available to the full House but not to the public.
Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), ranking member on the committee, gave a press conference after the vote.
“Sadly, we expect that the president of the United States will not put the national interest over his own personal interest,” said Mr. Schiff. “But it is a sad day indeed when that is also true of our own committee.”
Rep. Schiff said the committee majority not only blocked releasing Democrats' countermemo but also rejected briefings from the FBI and DOJ and announced it unilaterally had opened a formal investigation into both the FBI and the DOJ.
The NYT points out that the House Intelligence Committee Republicans' move is unprecedented:
Though House rules allow the Intelligence Committee to vote to disclose classified information if it is deemed to be in the public interest, the rule is not thought to have ever been used. Typically, lawmakers wishing to make public secretive information classified by the Executive Branch spend months, if not years, fighting with the White House and the intelligence community over what they can release.
The fight over the memo underscores a broader concern among U.S. intelligence agencies that the political tussles could cause longtime allies to share fewer intelligence reports. Several U.S. officials said there are growing concerns that congressional demands for classified intelligence, followed by efforts to make public some of that information, will lead foreign intelligence partners to restrict what information it shares with the U.S.
House Republicans Vote to Release Secret Memo on Russia Probe (NYT)
Republicans vote to release memo alleging FBI missteps while surveilling Trump campaign operative (WaPo)