Republican: Secret Memo on FBI Shows the 'Fix Was In'

The House Intelligence Committee has voted to release a secret memo criticizing the Justice Department and FBI's handling of the Russia investigation—and President Trump, who has the final call, is expected to release it, despite protests from his own intelligence officials. Sources tell the Washington Post that Trump so far has only a "bare-bones" understanding of the memo, based on media coverage, but he has told aides he supports its release because he believes it will show that the investigation of him has been biased. Republicans say the Republican-written secret document exposes wrongdoing in the FBI surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page, but Democrats and security officials argue that its release could damage intelligence-gathering efforts, Politico reports.

Justice officials have argued that the release could be "extraordinarily reckless." The House Intelligence Committee voted along party lines not to release a competing document written by Democrats. "Today this committee voted to put the president's personal interests, perhaps their own political interest, above the national interest," Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said after the vote, per the AP. Republicans are split on how much impact the memo—which grew out of the committee's investigation of the controversial Trump-Russia dossier—will have, though Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio tells the Post that the information could be explosive. "We get this memo out there, and people will see, the fix was in," he says. Trump has five days to decide whether to release the document. (More House Intelligence Committee stories.)