Memo’s Release Escalates Clash Over Russia Probe; Trump Says It ‘Totally Vindicates’ Him

Release comes after the FBI expressed ‘grave concerns’ over the accuracy of the document

Mr. Trump, who had to sign off on the memo’s release, has been at odds for much of the past year with several Justice Department leaders having to do with the Russia probe. He fired FBI Director James Comey and publicly criticized his own appointees, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, over his recusal from the Russia matter, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who now oversees the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.

.. A person who has reviewed the surveillance-warrant application said Mr. Steele’s research formed only a part of the application. The other information included in the application hasn’t been declassified, though Mr. Trump has that authority.

.. “This was about telling a political story that’s helpful to the president. It’s about telling a political story that’s designed to injure the work of the special counsel and to discredit it,” said Mr. Schiff.
.. Democrats on the committee have compiled their own memo on the matter, which addresses the information that prosecutors used beyond Mr. Steele’s research, but the GOP-controlled committee has so far blocked its release.
.. Mr. Page has been on the radar of U.S. intelligence since 2013, when Russian spies made an attempt to recruit him. 
.. He left Mr. Trump’s campaign in September 2016 after reports that a July 2016 trip he took to Moscow was of interest to investigators.
.. At least two of those renewals occurred while Mr. Trump was president and at least one was authorized by a Justice Department official he appointed. A person familiar with the matter said that four separate federal judges approved the surveillance of Mr. Page, and all of those judges were appointed by Republican presidents.
.. The memo is critical of Mr. Steele and notes that prosecutors in their application for the warrant didn’t explicitly state that he was working for a firm funded by Democrats. But the FISA application did disclose Mr. Steele was being paid by a law firm working for a major political party ..
.. The bureau considered Mr. Steele a reliable source from previous investigations, having helped provide information during a federal probe into alleged corruption at FIFA, the world soccer organization
.. The memo alleges that Mr. McCabe testified before the House Intelligence Committee in December that “no surveillance warrant would have been sought…without the Steele dossier information.”
.. Officials in Congress and the Justice Department familiar with Mr. McCabe’s testimony said the memo mischaracterized what he told lawmakers. He was asked what percentage of information in the FISA application was provided by Mr. Steele, and he demurred, saying the FBI didn’t evaluate such applications in such a way. Mr. McCabe was asked if it might have accounted for half of the warrant application, and he said he didn’t know, one person familiar with the matter said.
.. Mr. Trump and other Republicans cheered the buildup to the document’s release, fueled by social-media campaigns, saying it would expose law-enforcement wrongdoing in prosecuting the president.
.. One person close to Mr. Trump said this week that the president believes the memo undermines the credibility of Mr. Rosenstein
Asked Friday if he had confidence in Mr. Rosenstein, Mr. Trump said: “You figure that one out.”

A Reckoning for the FBI

The House memo reveals disturbing facts about the misuse of FISA.

The memo confirms that the FBI and Justice Department on Oct. 21, 2016 obtained a FISA order to surveil Carter Page, an American citizen who was a relatively minor volunteer adviser to the Trump presidential campaign.

.. The memo adds that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe told the committee in December 2017 that “no surveillance warrant would have been sought” without the dossier.

.. But the FBI failed to tell the court that Mr. Steele and Fusion were the main sources for that Yahoo article. In essence the FBI was citing Mr. Steele to corroborate Mr. Steele.

.. The FBI retained Mr. Steele as a source, and in October 2016 he talked to Mother Jones magazine without authorization about the FBI investigation and his dossier alleging collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. The FBI then fired Mr. Steele, but it never told the FISA judges about that either. Nor did it tell the court any of this as it sought three subsequent renewals of the order on Mr. Page.

.. Mr. Steele and Fusion then leaked the fact of the investigation to friendly reporters to try to defeat Mr. Trump before the election. And afterward they continued to leak all this to the press to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Mr. Trump’s victory.

.. No matter its motives, the FBI became a tool of anti-Trump political actors.

.. President Trump should declassify it promptly, along with Senator Chuck Grassley’s referral for criminal investigation of Mr. Steele.

.. note that Democrats aren’t challenging the core facts that the FBI used the dossier to gain a FISA order or the bureau’s lack of disclosure to the FISA judges.

.. As to the claim that the release tarnishes the FBI and FISA court, exposing abuses is the essence of accountability in a democracy.

.. The question of FISA abuse is independent of Mr. Mueller’s work

.. Mr. Trump would do well to knock off the tweets lambasting the Mueller probe

.. Mr. Trump and the White House should consider the remedy of radical transparency.

Even now, Republicans are ignoring the storm clouds

Not so long ago, Republican leaders prided themselves on protecting middle-American minds from the liberal intellectual rot being spread by politicians and college professors they viewed as being hostile to law enforcement, contemptuous of constitutional traditions, indifferent to personal morality and accommodating to Russian tyrants. They claimed to be the intellectual heirs of Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk and William F. Buckley Jr. Now those same politicians debase themselves daily in service to Trump.

.. “I faced great pressure because of Russia,” America’s president told the Russians. “That’s taken off. I am not under investigation.”
.. As a storm gathers over Washington and the world, Donald Trump’s Republican Party remains complicit in his frenzied efforts to undermine the American institutions and established values that conservatives once claimed to share.
And while the clouds overhead are cause for all to be concerned, it will be the husk of a once-proud Republican Party that will be swept away first by the deluge that is sure to come.

Paul Manafort Sues Mueller and Asks a Judge to Narrow the Russia Investigation

But Mr. Manafort’s strategy is a clever legal maneuver that attempts to force prosecutors to reveal details about the scope of the investigation. By filing a separate lawsuit, Mr. Manafort’s lawyer, Kevin Downing, also creates the possibility of a protracted fight over Mr. Mueller’s authority.

“If the ultimate objective is to continue to try to undermine the credibility of Mueller and his prosecutors, it could have some value,” said Jimmy Gurulé, a Notre Dame law professor who was a senior Justice Department official in the administration of the first President George Bush. “But in terms of a legal strategy, it’s highly unlikely to prevail.”

.. Worse for the White House, the lawsuit also invites Mr. Mueller to give a “devastating response” that spells out all the ways Mr. Manafort is relevant to Mr. Trump and the Russia investigation