On Friday 2, 2018, The House Intelligence Committee and President Trump publicly released a memo suggesting the FBI and Justice Department showed unfair bias in their surveillance of Trump Campaign Advisor Carter Page.

After being created by Republican Chairman Devin Nunes and passed by The Intelligence Committee, the memo was sent to the President. As reported by Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times, Trump, ignoring the opinion and advice of intelligence officials, agreed to make the memo public, infuriating many Democrats and Republicans alike.

The crux of the memo is that the FBI and Justice Department wrongly relied predominantly on a politically funded Dossier to secure a FISA warrant permitting secret surveillance of Page, according to Fandos. Chairman Nunes portrayed this as a grave transgression.

“Agencies were exploited to target one group over another”, said Nunes.

British Spy’s Christopher Steele, according to a Fox News article written by Hans A. Von Spakovsky, composed the dossier that Nunes and some Republicans are upset about. The Clinton Campaign hired Steele to do opposition research. The FBI and Justice Department failed to inform the FISA Court that the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee paid Steele $160,000 to prepare the dossier. The Republican memo asserts that by using Steele’s dossier in obtaining a warrant, the FBI and DOJ were (and still are) bias in their investigation.  

However, the Republican memo isn’t entirely accurate in its account of all the evidence used in the application for the FISA warrant. According to the Times, there was much more extensive evidence, including but not limited to, a wiretap done on Page in 2013 for meeting with a Russian Operative and other history with potential controversial Russian ties.

According to a Los Angeles Times article by Chris Megerian, the warrant gave permission to surveil Page for 90 days, and then was renewed three separate times.

“The three renewals may indicate that the FISA court judges believed the counterintelligence operation was bearing fruit,” said LA Times reporter Megerian.

Given the outstanding evidence, in many ways, the enlightening memo that was promised by many republicans was rather underwhelming. Many people believe this to be one of many stunts Donald Trump and the Republican Party have made to undermine Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian Collusion.

“The sole purpose of the Republican document is to circle the wagons around the White House and insulate the president,” said Adam Schiff, Democrat of California and member of the Intelligence Committee.

Sharing Schiff’s sentiment, many democrats and never-trumper republicans accuse Republicans of using the memo to politicize what should be a bipartisan investigation into another countries interference in our election. Even top ranking republican John McCain criticized the memo.

“If we continue to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing Putin’s job for him,” McCain tweeted.

The Democrats, led by Schiff, recently put together a ten-page rebuttal memo; however, on Friday 9, 2018, Trump blocked it temporarily. As we await the official Democratic response, it seems the country is in for more political games.