White House Confirms Trump Wants To Release Classified Memo

A top White House aide confirmed Sunday that President Trump wants to release a controversial classified memo from a House panel that claims to show FBI bias against him.

“We don’t know what’s in the memo. But I think the president generally sides on the side of transparency,” legislative affairs director Marc Short said on “Fox News Sunday.” “I’m sure he’s very concerned about some of the appearances of conflict of interest at the top of the agency .”

Trump informed Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week via his Chief of Staff John Kelly that the memo should be made public, the Washington Post reported on Friday.

Republican lawmakers in the House who have seen the memo – written by Rep. Devin Nunes and other GOP members on the House Intelligence Committee – say it shows the FBI and the Department of Justice were politically motivated to begin conducting surveillance against Trump during the 2016 campaign.

But Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd – a Trump appointee – said it “would be extraordinarily reckless” for Nunes release the classified four-page memo without giving the DOJ and the FBI a chance to determine if it could compromise national security.

While some Republican lawmakers have called for its release, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said it shouldn’t be made public without a thorough review of what it contains.

“No, I don’t want it released yet,” Graham said on ABC’s “This Week.” ” I want somebody outside of the Republican-led Congress to look at these allegations. ”

But House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he’s seen the document and the public needs to see it, too.

“Having read this memo, I think it would be appropriate that the public has full view of it,” the House’s number two Republican told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Asked whether this is just Trump’s way of trying to discredit an investigation into whether his campaign staff colluded with the Russians, McCarthy dismissed the question.

“Because it has nothing to do with the president right now,” he said. “It is the committee doing their work who have found something, voted as a committee of the whole.”