Trump accused of double standards
♦ Trump blocks release of Democrat's response to Republican's memo
♦ US Justice Department's No 3 official resigns
President Donald Trump is refusing to declassify a high-profile memo written by Democratic lawmakers about the Russia probe.
In a letter to the chair of the House Intelligence Committee Friday, White House counsel Don McGahn says the memo "contains numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages."
The Democrats' memo aimed to counter a Republican-drafted one the president declassified and released.
FBI chief Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in a separate letter indicated that releasing this material would present concerns for the "protection of intelligence sources and methods, ongoing investigations and other similarly sensitive information."
House Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called Trump's move to block the memo a "stunningly brazen attempt to cover up the truth about the Trump-Russia scandal from the American people."
"Clearly, the president has something to hide," she added.
However, Republican lawmaker Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and author of the previously released Republican memo, said it was "no surprise" the Department of Justice and FBI advised against publishing the Democratic memo.
"Intelligence Committee Republicans encourage the minority to accept the DOJ's recommendations and make the appropriate technical changes and redactions so that no sources and methods are disclosed and their memo can be declassified as soon as possible," he said in a statement.
The previously released Republican text alleges anti-Trump bias in the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election that brought Trump to power.
The Justice Department and the FBI had also warned against releasing the Republican memo, saying it could jeopardize US intelligence collection methods. Trump authorized its release anyway.
Democrats on the intelligence committee complained the Republicans' four-page memo cherry-picked facts and explained events out of context and was thus not accurate.
They joined other Trump administration critics in calling the release of the Republican document an effort to undermine the investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
On Friday, Adam Schiff, the top democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, accused the president of holding double standards in approving the release of the Republican memo, but blocking the Democratic one.
Meanwhile, the third-ranking official at the US Justice Department is resigning just nine months after taking the powerful position at the agency that Trump has been criticizing sharply.
Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand would have inherited oversight of a probe into possible Trump campaign links to Russian interference in the 2016 election if the president forced out the Justice Department's number two, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Trump, frustrated by the Russian investigation, has reportedly considered firing Rosenstein, the only person empowered to dismiss Mueller.
Comments