Trump blasts FBI, Justice Department bosses in showdown over Republican memo
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In an effort to defuse the conflict, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan backed the release of a Democratic counterpoint memo if the classified Republican document were made public. Ryan can block either but has supported releasing the Republican memo.
The four-page memo was commissioned by the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes. It purports to show that the FBI and Justice Department misled a US court in seeking to extend electronic surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, multiple sources familiar with it have said.
Democrats have depicted the memo, which was crafted by Republican members of the intelligence panel, as misleading, based on a selective use of highly classified data and intended to discredit Mueller's work.
Mueller's criminal probe grew out of the FBI's Russia investigation after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey and Attorney-General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation. Russia has denied meddling in the election campaign. Trump, calling Mueller's probe a political witch hunt, has denied collusion or obstruction of justice.
Democrats say their counter-memo restores context and information left out of the Republican version. Republicans have resisted releasing that document, but Ryan's office said on Friday he backed making the Democrats' rebuttal public if it does not reveal intelligence gathering sources or methods.
In the Senate, some Republicans including John Thune and Lindsey Graham have opposed the classified memo's release.
REBUKES FOR TRUMP
US Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence panel, responded to Trump's tweets with his own Twitter message. "The country's top elected leader has agreed to selectively and misleadingly release classified info to attack the FBI - that's what would have been unthinkable a short time ago," he said.
There has been speculation that FBI director Christopher Wray, appointed by Trump after he fired Comey, might resign if Trump allows release of the memo.
Trump has openly criticised Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from overseeing the Russia probe last March following media reports that he had failed to disclose meetings in 2016 with Moscow's ambassador at the time, Sergei Kislyak.
The deputy attorney-general appointed to lead the probe when Sessions stepped aside from the issue, Rod Rosenstein, has also drawn Trump's ire, most recently over his role in the surveillance warrant at the heart of the Republican memo.
James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, said Trump's attack on the FBI and Justice Department was the"pot calling the kettle black."
Republican efforts to release selective portions of classified information in the memo was a "blatant" political act, he told CNN.
Although Trump's tweet charged a bias in favour of Democrats, many of the people it targets are Republicans: Wray, Sessions and Rosenstein. Many Democrats blamed Comey, also a Republican, for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's election defeat in 2016 after he announced the discovery of additional emails from her private server just 11 days before the vote.
