Committee votes to release Democrats Russia memo

Washington D.C. [U.S.A.] Feb 6 (ANI): The House Intelligence Committee unanimously voted in favour of releasing the Democrat's memo in response to the Republican's memo alleging Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) bias against United States President Donald Trump.

The approval by the committee on Monday cleared the way for the White House to take the call on the document's release.

Trump now has five days to review the Democratic memo and decide on its release.

A decision to stop it could lead to an ugly standoff between the president, his top law enforcement and intelligence advisers and Democrats on Capitol Hill, reported the New York Times.

Trump on February 1 gave the green signal to release a controversial memo, containing alleged surveillance abuses of the FBI during the probe of Russian meddling in 2016 US presidential elections.

The contents of the memo were declassified even after the objections of Democrats and the FBI.

The President also claimed that the "totally vindicates" him in the continuing probe into Russia's interference in the election.

"Democrats have said their memo corrects mischaracterizations by the Republicans and adds crucial context to actions by the FBI and the Justice Department in obtaining a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order to wiretap the former Trump aide, Carter Page, in October 2016," it reported.

A White House spokesman, Raj Shah, told reporters: "We will consider it along the same terms that we considered the Nunes memo - which is to allow for a legal review - national security review - led by the White House Counsel's Office," reported the New York Times.

The memo's fate, however, remains uncertain.

Earlier on Monday, Trump attacked the Democrats, hinting at Adam Schiff, for not applauding him during his State of the Union address and termed them to be "un-American" and "treasonous".

He made the statement during a speech at an Ohio factory, hours after attacking a laundry list of senior figures in the intelligence community as "liars and leakers".

"They certainly didn't seem to love our country very much," he said. (ANI)

This story has not been edited. It has been published as provided by ANI