President Trump declassified Representative Devin Nunes' (R-CA) memo Friday, sending the controversial document back to the House Intelligence Committee without any redactions. The committee's Republican majority now can make the memo public.
The White House has transmitted the president's opinion to the committee in a letter this morning, the official said.
A House Intelligence Committee source tells ABC the release of the memo is "imminent" and will be posted on the committee's website later today.
The president told reporters in the Oval Office, “I think it’s a disgrace what’s happening in our country. A lot of people should be ashamed of themselves and much worse than that.”
The FBI and the Justice Department had lobbied strenuously against the memo’s release. In a statement Wednesday, the FBI had said it was “gravely concerned” that key facts were missing from the memo, which, it said, left an inaccurate impression of how the agency conducted surveillance under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The release was vehemently opposed by the intelligence community, with the FBI issuing a rare public statement to express its "grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy."
WaPo:
Current and former law enforcement officials said a major concern inside the FBI is that the rules governing classified information will impede their ability to respond to the memo’s accusations when it becomes public.
President Trump authorizes release of controversial GOP memo with no redactions (ABC News)
White House tells Congress to release Nunes memo unredacted (Axios)
President approves release of GOP memo criticizing FBI surveillance (WaPo)