WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump has said a disputed four-page House Intelligence Committee memo, composed by Republicans and declassified by him, "totally vindicates 'Trump'" in an FBI probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, including possible ties to his campaign.
"This memo totally vindicates 'Trump' in probe. But the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on," Mr Trump wrote in a tweet at 9.40am on Saturday local time. "Their was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead). This is an American disgrace!" It's unclear why he tweeted the word "their" instead of "there".
The President has intensified his attacks on his own Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for their handling of the investigation into Russia's alleged interference, hinting that senior leaders there should face consequences for conduct he called in an earlier tweet "a disgrace" .
Mr Trump, who has become increasingly outspoken in his suggestions of wrongdoing by law enforcement officials as the inquiry has reached deeper inside the White House, made his comments as he declassified last Friday the secret memo that insinuates that the Russia investigation has been tainted by Democratic bias.
"I think it's terrible," he said of the actions described in the memo, which accuses federal law enforcement officials of abusing their authority when they sought permission to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
"It's a disgrace what's happening in our country," Mr Trump added. "A lot of people should be ashamed of themselves, and much worse than that."
The release of the memo despite the objections of the FBI, which last week expressed "grave concerns" over its accuracy, raised fresh questions about whether Mr Trump - who last year fired Mr James Comey, the FBI director overseeing the Russia inquiry, and then sought to remove Mr Robert Mueller, the special counsel who took over - might seek next to oust Mr Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney-general who named Mr Mueller to the job.
The memo alleges that the federal probe into potential collusion between Mr Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russia was a product of political bias against Mr Trump at the FBI and Justice Department.
Democrats said the memo was intended to undermine Mr Mueller's criminal probe into the Russia matter launched in May 2017 that grew out of an earlier FBI investigation.
Asked by reporters whether the memo made him more likely to fire Mr Rosenstein or whether he had confidence in him, Mr Trump replied: "You figure that one out."
Dismissing Mr Rosenstein would likely ignite a huge political firestorm, as his firing of Mr Comey did last year.
When asked about the potential dismissal of Mr Rosenstein, White House press spokesman Raj Shah told CNN late on Friday: "We fully expect Rod Rosenstein to continue on as the deputy attorney-general."
The memo alleges that the FBI concealed the Democratic ties of a source the agency used to justify surveillance on Mr Page who has ties with Russia.
Some lawmakers accused Mr Trump of playing into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin after, as Republican Senator John McCain put it, Russia "engaged in an elaborate plot to interfere in an American election and undermine our democracy".
In a swipe at US law enforcement leaders on Twitter hours before the memo's release, Mr Trump said: "The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicised the sacred investigative process in favour of Democrats and against Republicans - something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago."
Writing on Twitter, Mr Comey branded the memo "dishonest and misleading".
FBI director Christopher Wray sent a message to bureau employees apparently aimed at boosting morale after the memo's release.
"I stand by our shared determination to do our work independently and by the book," Mr Wray said in the message, excerpts of which were seen by Reuters.
The memo was commissioned by the Republican chairman of the House intelligence panel, Mr Devin Nunes. He said it laid bare "serious violations of the public trust, and the American people have a right to know when officials in crucial institutions are abusing their authority for political purposes".
Attorney-General Jeff Sessions, criticised by Mr Trump for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, offered praise for Mr Rosenstein as well as the department's No. 3 official Rachel Brand on Friday, saying they "represent the kind of quality and leadership that we want in the department".
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Who the key players are
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CARTER PAGEThe unpaid Trump campaign adviser had been on the FBI's radar since 2013 over ties to a Russian bank executive later convicted of spying on the US. Mr Page resigned as a Trump foreign policy adviser in September 2016, a month before a warrant for surveillance of his activities was approved and shortly after a July 2016 visit to Moscow in which he was suspected to have met sanctioned Kremlin officials. The application for a warrant against Mr Page has been characterised as biased in the memo, even though the Trump team has characterised him as a bit player in the campaign.
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DEVIN NUNESThe US Congressman spearheaded the Republican Party's pursuit of allegations of misconduct by the FBI and Department of Justice amid an escalating scandal over the Trump campaign's alleged ties to Russia. Currently in his eighth term in Congress, Mr Nunes served on the Trump campaign team and is seen as a young Republican who defends the President at all costs. In order to facilitate the release of the memo, he engineered an unprecedented vote by the House Intelligence Committee to release classified information despite FBI and Justice Department objections.
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FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT (FISA)
An Act created to oversee requests for surveillance warrants by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. It "allows the government to obtain the communications of foreigners outside the US, including foreign terrorist threats". A Fisa warrant was issued for monitoring former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. According to former FBI director James Comey, the application for a Fisa warrant is "thicker than my wrists", and a former FBI agent said it likely involved a dozen people's insights and intelligence. The Fisa warrant review system was established by Congress in 1978 and, as of 2013, had reviewed more than 35,000 surveillance requests.
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THE DOSSIER
A dossier on Mr Donald Trump's alleged Russia links put together by former British spy Christopher Steele was "an essential part" of the application made for a Fisa warrant against Mr Page. The Democratic Party and Mrs Hillary Clinton's campaign partially funded the dossier after Mr Trump won the presidential nomination, but it was originally bankrolled by a conservative donor opposed to Mr Trump. The memo alleges that the FBI and top Justice officials knew Democrats had funded the dossier, but did not share that with the court that approved the surveillance order or for any of the four renewals.
WASHINGTON POST, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The memo focuses on court-approved surveillance of Mr Page, and said the FBI used a source who was strongly biased against Mr Trump, former British spy Christopher Steele, to justify the action.
It claims that a dossier of alleged Trump-Russia contacts compiled by Mr Steele, and funded in part by the Democrats, formed an "essential part" of requests to a special court to be allowed to conduct electronic surveillance on Mr Page that began in October 2016.
The memo does not mention that The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website, first hired the research firm that funded Mr Steele's work.
Despite the memo's charges, neither the focus on Mr Page nor the FBI's investigation of alleged Trump-Russia ties began with the Steele dossier.
Mr Page came to the FBI's attention as early as 2013, when he met in New York Russians who were officers of the Kremlin's foreign intelligence service, sources have said.
The memo acknowledges that the FBI counterintelligence investigation began in July 2016, three months before the request for electronic surveillance on Mr Page, as a result of the activities of another Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos.
Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat in May 2016 that Russia had political dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
"The selective release and politicisation of classified information sets a terrible precedent and will do long-term damage to the intelligence community and our law enforcement agencies," Democrats on the House intelligence panel said in a statement. They said they hoped the panel would vote tomorrow to release their own memo responding to the allegations.
Spokesman Shah told CNN that Mr Trump "would be inclined" to let that memo be released if it clears a security and legal review.
NYTIMES, REUTERS, WASHINGTON POST
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Nunes memo: Four key extracts
Here's a look at key extracts from the four-page memo released by US Republicans alleging bias by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Justice Department in their investigation of the Trump campaign's alleged ties to Russia.
In this paragraph, the words "essential part" are of critical importance, setting up the central point of the memo that the application to begin surveillance of campaign adviser Carter Page was dependent on information in a dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele (left).
Much of the content of the dossier was unsubstantiated and quite salacious.
The memo notes that Mr Steele's dossier was funded in part by the Democratic Party and Mrs Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, although it omits the fact that the research effort through Fusion GPS was originally bankrolled by a prominent conservative donor and activist.
The memo states that the FBI did not present evidence of this possible bias at the time of seeking a warrant for surveillance of Mr Page, nor during subsequent reviews, which it said indicated, at best, neglect, or at worst, an anti-Trump bias.
The memo recounts how Mr Steele expressed negative views about Mr Donald Trump during meetings with a senior Justice Department official, further evidence of bias, it said.
However, the official in question, Mr Bruce Ohr, made a record of Mr Steele's opinions, undercutting the accusation of rampant bias within the department. But this information was not included in the Fisa application for Mr Page.
The question that arises, according to the BBC, is whether knowing about Mr Steele's motivations or opinions would have been enough to reject the Fisa application? It also poses the question of whether the evidence he presented, or other evidence that was omitted in the memo, would justify the surveillance.
It should be noted that since it was first established by Congress in 1978, the judges on the court have rejected only 12 applications out of more than 35,000.
This paragraph, questioning former FBI director James Comey's decision to inform Mr Trump about the dossier, is likely to have been well-received by the US President.
All the same, it also seems irrelevant to the point the memo is trying to make. It does, however, mischaracterise how Mr Comey described the Steele dossier.
While Mr Comey did indeed use the words "salacious and unverified", that was only in relation to portions of the dossier.
He declined to comment on the veracity of "criminal allegations" in other parts of the dossier, at least in open testimony.
The final line asserts that Mr Andrew McCabe, the then-deputy director of the FBI, testified there would have been no surveillance request without the dossier.
However, without Mr McCabe's actual testimony, the memo's contention becomes a big "if".
The memo takes considerable effort to link the Steele dossier to the surveillance request for Mr Page and the legitimacy of the Russia investigation as a whole.
It notes that it was information about George Papadopoulos - another campaign adviser who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about contacts with Russian officials - that prompted the entire Russia counter-intelligence investigation.
Omitting Papadopoulos' guilty plea, the memo highlights that the investigation was initiated by Mr Peter Strzok, a senior FBI agent who has been caught up in a scandal surrounding an affair with a co-worker in which they made derogatory remarks about Mr Trump via text message.
The memo concludes with the oft-cited line about an "insurance" policy should Mr Trump be elected without providing any context.
PHOTOS: BLOOMBERG, THE WHITE HOUSE
