WASHINGTON (CN) - With President Donald Trump vowing to release a classified memo about the FBI that the bureau has called inaccurate, policy analysts said the divisive move is unlikely to promote transparency.
"Unless all of the underlying data and the full application is made public, the American public is not going to have a complete picture of exactly how this whole thing was handled," the Cato Institute’s Patrick Eddington said in a phone interview. "This kind of selective declassification, it certainly smacks of cherry picking."
Prepared by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, the 4-page memo probes the authority that the FBI invoked to obtain a warrant against former Trump campaign associate Carter Page.
Trump has been reviewing the 4-page memo since Monday when the committee voted along partisan lines to release it. After his first State of the Union address Tuesday night, the president assured Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina that he "100 percent" plans to let the committee release the memo.
Committee Chair David Nunes has touted the memo as showing that the surveillance of Page was improper, but the Department of Justice and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein have warned that the memo’s release could harm national security.
The FBI condemned the memo as well Wednesday.
“With regard to the House Intelligence Committee’s memorandum, the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee vote to release it,” the FBI said in a statement. “As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”
As part of its investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the FBI obtained a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to surveil Page’s communications shortly after reports of Page’s contacts with the Russian government caused him to step down as a national security adviser on the Trump campaign.
As the investigation has gained momentum in recent months, Trump and fellow Republicans have ratcheted up claims about a supposed FBI “witch hunt” fueled by institutional bias.
FISA warrant procedures would require a showing of probable cause that Carter was acting as a foreign agent for Russia, but House Republicans have questioned whether the bureau improperly relied on materials in the so-called Trump dossier, compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.
The 35-page dossier, much of which remains unverified, was partially funded by the Democratic National Committee after Republicans who solicited the opposition research against Trump opted to abandon the project.
Rep. Adam Schiff, a ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called out Republicans on Tuesday for their rush to pass off an incomplete report.
"The memo characterizes underlying classified information," Schiff said in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“But the chairman never bothered to take the time to go read the underlying information,” Schiff continued. “So how does he know whether the memo written by staff is even accurate.”
The House Intelligence Committee did not respond to a request for comment on whether Nunes, or the staff who compiled the memo, have reviewed the underlying materials.