Posted on 02/10/2018 12:27:24 PM PST by Kaslin
At the moment, the President does. Or at least he did yesterday.
Of course, we’re speaking of Memo 2.0, otherwise known as the Schiff memo. It was crafted in response to the already infamous memo from Devin Nunes, allegedly filling in the “missing” information which Democrats claim was intentionally left out of Memo 1.0 for partisan reasons. After saying that he planned to release it soon, Trump reversed course and said that it would be going back to the Intelligence Committee for a second pass due to security reasons. (CNN)
President Donald Trump won’t release the Democratic rebuttal to the Republican intelligence memo alleging FBI abuses of its surveillance authority at this time, and has sent it back to the House Intelligence Committee for changes.
In a letter to the committee, White House counsel Donald McGahn said, “although the President is inclined to declassify the February 5th Memorandum, because the Memorandum contains numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages, he is unable to do so at this time.”
Trump had said earlier Friday he planned to release the memo. “It’s gonna be released soon,” Trump told reporters at the White House, adding, “We’re going to release a letter.”
This, of course, caused Democrats to “erupt” as HuffPo described it.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called Trump’s action “stunningly brazen” and “part of a dangerous and desperate pattern of cover-up.” She added: “Clearly, the president has something to hide.”
Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, lashed Trump for ignoring pleas from the FBI and his own Justice Department not to release the GOP memo, authored by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), because it omitted “material facts.” The president now “expresses concerns over sharing precisely those facts with [the] public.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called the move “obstruction of justice by Donald Trump happening in real time.” He said the call “makes a mockery of national security and common sense.”
What we’re seeing here is, unfortunately, a case of a very serious question which is of interest to the public being turned into a circus and nobody comes out looking very good. On the Democrats’ side, keep in mind that the vote to release the Nunes memo went along party lines. The GOP wanted it released and the Democrats didn’t, citing concerns over revealing sensitive information. Now there’s a memo which ostensibly contains even more classified information on the same subject and the committee voted unanimously to release it. (Including the Republicans.) At a minimum, that makes the Democrats look rather inconsistent and insincere in their concerns over protecting methods and sources.
But the White House doesn’t wind up looking all that much better. Trump was ready to pull the trigger on the Nunes memo before it even arrived on his desk and he followed through with doing so. By turning around and rejecting the immediate release of the Schiff memo, he opened the door for precisely the sorts of attacks from Democrats you saw in the HuffPo article I linked above. And most of the media has been all too happy to level those same charges.
If we were approaching this in a more nuanced fashion, you could argue that Trump finds some of the new information more sensitive than what Nunes put out and he wants the committee to redact parts of it. And that may indeed be the case. But since we’ll never get to see the redacted portions, the press can simply claim that the missing material was only “sensitive” in political terms, making Trump look bad.
Of course, that leaves us with the question of whether or not the forbidden text will actually remain hidden. Are we seriously being asked to believe that the Schiff memo won’t wind up in the newsroom of either the New York Times or the Washington Post, assuming it’s not there already? They didn’t leak the Nunes memo, but that made the Democrats look bad. If this one contains information which undermines Trump, what do you suppose the odds are that they will keep it under wraps, even if it means an investigation into the disclosure of classified material?
Perhaps I’ve just grown too cynical over the years, but I’ll be shocked if it doesn’t come out either way. And that’s particularly true after we saw how Jim Comey’s personal memos were handled.
Hotair has been just that for a while.
It’s also been a worthless POS for a while.
The President sent it back for valid reasons.
Hotair sent south a few years ago. I wonder what happened.
I imagine the memo will be leaked soon. Because Democrats don’t care about laws.
The Demonicrat memo is just one big pile of Schiff.
Three turns into a game of tic-tac-toe and
it's looking bad for the second player (Dems).
Their first mistake was letting the Repubs go first
to take the center square.
Then their first move was a bad move and has
already cost them the game, even if they don't realize it yet.
Trump could instantly terminate all this political BS by declassifying and releasing all the FISA applications, all the FISA warrants, and all the FISA court transcripts.
Just do it, Trump.
POLL: Will the Democrats leak the Schiff Memo to the news media before it is released?
Yes
No
I’m not sure
http://www.headlineoftheday.com/
I note that this BS article fails to mention the DOJ letter Rosenstein and Wray wrote to the WH outlining their concerns that the Schiff memo would compromise national security. I post it here in its entirety:
U.S. Department of Justice
February 9, 2018
Mr. Donald F. McGahn ll
Counsel to the President
The White House
1600 Avenue, NW
Washington. DC 20500-0003
Dear Mr. McGahn:
At your office’s request, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have reviewed the January 29. 2018 memorandum from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Minority to all Members of the House of Representatives. Specifically, you have asked us to identify the information about which DOJ and the FBI would have national security or law enforcement concerns if released publicly.
Enclosed please find a version of the document that identities, in highlighted text, information the release of which would present such concerns in light of longstanding principles regarding the protection of intelligence sources and methods, ongoing investigations, and other similarly sensitive information. We have further identified, in red boxes. the subset of such information for which national security or law enforcement concerns are especially significant. Our determinations have taken into account the information previously declassified by the President as communicated in a letter to HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes dated February 2, 2018.
Sincerely,
Rod J. Rosenstein
Deputy Attorney General
Christopher A. Wray
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Enclosure
Who knows, Donald might be manipulating the Dems into demanding that. Then he could suddenly grant it, and their spin goes sour.
At some point, you would think they would be scared to pull any of their crap. He keeps burning them over and over and over again.
Trump is playing them like a fiddle...
The president sure does
I disagree. Release it and it could turn out to be another nothing burger. Keep it in the committee and the Democrats can claim that Trump is trying to hide the truth, double standards, hypocrisy, and all the rest.
Bow to your partner and do-si-do - Hee Hah!!!
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