President Donald Trump’s decision not to declassify the memo drafted by Democrats was met with rage and fury from the Democratic leadership. The memo was meant to rebut the document authored by Republican lawmakers that showed alleged surveillance abuses from the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) against Trump campaign official.
Both House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer accused President Trump of applying a double standard by approving the release of the GOP memo while blocking the Democratic one.
“The President’s double standard when it comes to transparency is appalling. The rationale for releasing the Nunes memo, transparency, vanishes when it could show information that’s harmful to him. Millions of Americans are asking one simple question: what is he hiding?” Schumer said in a statement.
Pelosi said in a statement that President Trump’s move made it crystal clear that his decision to release the document composed by staff for House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes last week was “blatantly political.”
“The hypocrisy is on full display. What does the President have to hide?” Pelosi tweeted.
After reviewing if the memo content is a threat to national security, Trump blocked on Friday the release of the document that will apparently show that senior FBI and DOJ officials approved the surveillance on Trump’s campaign adviser Carter Page on information not obtained from the controversial Steele dossier.
According to The Hill, White House counsel Don McGahn said in a letter to Nunes that the president was “inclined to declassify” the Democratic memo, but that administration officials believed it would create “especially significant concerns” for national security.
Trump previously declared that the Republican memo “totally vindicates” him in the investigation into possible collusion between his campaign and Russia.
Both the FBI and the Democrats criticized the Republican memo for being carefully crafted for the sole purpose of undermining the investigation conducted by the two departments.
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