NY GOP Rep: FBI, DOJ Officials Named in Memo 'Should be Prosecuted'

House Republicans released a controversial memo today accusing the FBI and Department of Justice of overstepping their authority by surveilling a former Trump campaign advisor. 

 

Republican Congresswoman Claudia Tenney (R-NY) said a special prosecutor should be appointed to look into the allegations from the memo and said officials named in the document "should be prosecuted." 

 

"I cannot think of a situation that I know of in American history that is as illegal and as astounding as this," said Rep. Tenney in an interview. 

 

The memo was released Friday afternoon after being cleared by the White House. It has since prompted a political battle between President Trump and House Republicans against Democrats and the FBI.

 

The memo's main accusations include that the Justice Department and the FBI relied on partisan information from an infamous dossier, an opposition research document with damaging information against President Trump. It alleged that this was the political basis for a wiretapping warrant to spy on former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page for a year.

 

Democrats and the FBI have decried the memo's release as another attempt by President Trump to discredit the Special Counsel Robert Mueller. He is running a separate investigation into whether the Trump campaign and the Russian government colluded or if President Trump obstructed justice. 

 

Rep. Tenney of New York accused the Democrats of being hypocritical. 

 

"I sat at the State of the Union address and listened to Democrats scream, 'Russia, Russia, Russia,' and 'collusion.' Who's colluding here?" said Tenney.

 

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who is a Democratic Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee (whose Republican counterpart on the committee, Rep. Devin Nunes [R-CA] helped compile and release the memo), has been against the memo coming out to the public since the start. He claims the document is a political hit-job by Republicans.

 

"This wasn't about oversight, this was about telling a political story that's designed to injure the work of the Special Counsel and discredit it," Schiff told reporters today. 

 

In a contrasting statement, Devin Nunes defended his committee's release of the document as a move for transparency.

 

“The committee has discovered 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,” Mr. Nunes said in a statement.

 

You can read the memo here.