



House Intelligence Committee Republicans went first with their Feb. 2 salvo that alleged “biased” FBI and Justice Department officials had abused their surveillance powers by withholding information from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.




Even though the counter-memo is incomplete, it includes several points of interest that advance the never-ending story of the Russia imbroglio.

1.The FBI has corroborated parts of the Russia dossier


NPR and other news organizations have not detailed the contents of the dossier because it remains unproven, but Schiff’s memo suggests that the Justice Department actually has corroborated parts of it.

Which parts? That is blacked out. So there is no way to know whether it’s some of the anodyne background aspects of the file — or the more infamous passages.

All the same, it is significant that the Justice Department has established for its own purposes that at least some of the contents of the dossier aren’t either simply false or Russian disinformation.

2. The feds collected “valuable intelligence” from Carter Page

Onetime Trump adviser Carter Page is the main character of the dueling memos. For Republicans, he is a civil liberties martyr who was cruelly wronged by “biased” FBI and DoJ officials who duped a judge into authorizing intrusive surveillance against him.

Schiff’s memo makes a very different case. It not only cites Page’s years-long flirtations with Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, but highlights what it calls the worthwhile information yielded by spying on him. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requires that warrants produce something. The FBI can’t keep one going if the subject of the surveillance isn’t talking with people of interest or involved with clandestine activities. Page evidently was.


“The Court-approved surveillance of Page allowed FBI to collect valuable intelligence,” it says.

What did the feds learn? Those sections are blacked out. Phrases that do appear in this section, however, include “repeatedly contacted” and “contradict his sworn testimony” to the intelligence committee.

3. The FBI investigated other people in Trump world


Schiff’s memo describes how material from the dossier didn’t begin to reach the FBI unit running its counterintelligence investigation into Trump and Russia until seven weeks after it had begun its work. Then the memo says this:

“By then, the FBI had already opened sub-inquiries into [redacted] individuals linked to the Trump campaign: [redacted]” and Page.

This is important for a few reasons. One, the wording of this passages suggests at least three or four subjects. Two, it doesn’t seem to suggest that Trump himself was the subject of a “sub-inquiry,” verifying a defense he has offered several times. Three, it suggests these other people might have been the subject of government surveillance in addition to Page — and that raises the question about whether the FBI might still be monitoring people in Trump’s orbit today, including within his family or the White House.

4. Republicans have not budged from their earlier attack

Schiff and Democrats use much of their memo to defend the FBI and Justice Department. The agencies made appropriate disclosures to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in asking to surveil Page, the Democrats argue, and Republicans’ other attacks are “irrelevant.”

Nunes continues to argue they are, in fact, pretty relevant. His statement on Saturday continued to focus on what he called the abuse of power in Page’s case, including what he said were the FBI’s failures to give all the relevant information it had about the Democratic-underwritten dossier and Page’s own record.


The White House, meanwhile, complained that Democrats omitted in their memo that former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe had said that the dossier was the basis for the FISA application on Page. Schiff’s memo does make its own case in that point and argues the FBI would have continued its investigation of the Russian attack and Page without the dossier.


5. The template has been established for memo madness



The minority can’t twist the arms of the agencies controlled by its opponents and it can’t get parity with the opening shot: Nunes’ memo was released by lunchtime on a Friday following a week of extensive coverage. Schiff’s memo came out with no preliminary fanfare on a Saturday afternoon.



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