FBI Scrambling to Get More Info on Explosive Nunes Memo Ahead of Vote to Release It

After tempers flared last week over a GOP attack on top bureau officials, the House intelligence committee and the FBI are searching for a climbdown before the memo gets released.

SPENCER ACKERMAN
01.29.18 2:47 PM ET

The House intelligence committee and the FBI are scrambling at the last minute to avoid an outright clash ahead of an anticipated vote to release a highly disputed Republican memo attacking current and former FBI and Justice Department officials over surveillance in the Trump-Russia saga.

Before the committee enters a 5 p.m. meeting widely anticipated but not certain to include a vote to declassify the memo, the intelligence committee and the FBI were in negotiations Monday to permit bureau officials a greater modicum of visibility into the memo’s contents, The Daily Beast has learned.

It appeared the discussions stopped short of permitting FBI officials to read the brief memo in full. Fox News and CNN reported that Trump’s appointed FBI director, Chris Wray, ventured to Capitol Hill on Sunday to view the memo—another sign that both sides were attempting to reconcile differences that emerged into public view last week.

On Wednesday, as House Republicans led a groundswell to, as they put it, #ReleaseTheMemo, the Justice Department’s Hill liaison warned a declassification of the memo that sidestepped the FBI and the department would be “extraordinarily reckless.”

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