Donald Trump and his Republican allies unleashed a controversial memo accusing the FBI of bias and abuse of power Friday, intensifying a high-stakes fight between the White House and prosecutors investigating the president’s campaign team.
Trump defied his own FBI director and the Justice Department to declassify the four-page Republican document, which implies malfeasance and partisanship at the very top of American law enforcement.
“I think it’s a disgrace. What’s going on in this country, I think it’s a disgrace,” a visibly tense Trump said as he announced his decision to release the memo. “A lot of people should be ashamed of themselves and much worse than that.”
Democrats and some Republicans have cried foul over the document, dismissing its release as little more than a stunt, and another thinly veiled effort to undermine the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia.
They claim the document — drafted by Devin Nunes, a Trump transition official, Congressman and House Intelligence Committee chairman — has glaring holes. The FBI itself said it had “grave concerns” over its accuracy.
The memo claims that Democrat-funded research prompted the FBI to spy on a former Trump campaign aide, Carter Page.
In a subsequent statement, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the document “raises serious concerns about the integrity of decisions made at the highest levels of the Department of Justice and the FBI.”
Trump’s son Don Jr tweeted that it should be “game over” for the Russia investigation.
Trump’s one-year-old presidency has been dominated by allegations that multiple aides, including Don Jr and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, may have coordinated with the Kremlin to defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Special counsel Robert Mueller has already indicted two officials including Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and two more campaign officials have admitted lying to investigators — including onetime national security advisor Michael Flynn.
The 71-year-old president has decried the allegations as fake news and a Democratic plot. Mueller is soon expected to ask him to testify under oath about what he knows.
