--- title: Democrats’ Memo Released Countering GOP Russia Probe Account description: The White House deemed the document “politically driven.” canonical: https://time.com/5174387/democrats-memo-released/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-02-24T21:40:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-12T09:00:14.138Z article:section: Politics og:title: Democrats’ Memo Released Countering GOP Russia Probe Account og:description: The White House deemed the document “politically driven" og:url: https://time.com/5174387/democrats-memo-released/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6ea1a871d27e03a1/698927148fd2ee81b135aa53/gettyimages-914610984.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: House Intelligence Cmte Debates Release Of Democratic Rebuttal To Nunes Memo og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Democrats’ Memo Released Countering GOP Russia Probe Account twitter:description: The White House deemed the document “politically driven" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6ea1a871d27e03a1/698927148fd2ee81b135aa53/gettyimages-914610984.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Democrats’ Memo Released Countering GOP Russia Probe Account > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=2bdc58cc-d32c-4ef4-a2bd-38b5e36de751&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Democratic Response to the Nunes Memo Could Be Released Soon. Here's What to Know [Watch (HLS stream): The Democratic Response to the Nunes Memo Could Be Released Soon. Here's What to Know](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/QteQZkGj.m3u8) (1:33)  _Published 2018-02-06. It was just three days ago that the House Intelligence committee released the memo overseen by Rep. Devin Nunes. Now, Democrats on the committee may have a chance to release their own. The committee voted Monday evening to make the memo public._ by [Billy House / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Billy House / Bloomberg Contributor Feb 24, 2018 9:40 PM UTC It was just three days ago that the House Intelligence committee released the memo overseen by Rep. Devin Nunes. Now, Democrats on the committee may have a chance to release their own. The committee voted Monday evening to make the memo public. by [Billy House / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Billy House / Bloomberg Contributor Feb 24, 2018 9:40 PM UTC The House Intelligence Committee released a rebuttal by House Democrats to a Republican memo alleging bias and misconduct by the FBI and Justice Department early in their investigation of Russian election interference. The White House quickly weighed in, terming the document “politically driven.” President Donald Trump’s approval for the public posting of the counter-memo came after an agreement was reached on redacting parts of an earlier version for national security reasons. With the response memo’s release, Democrats on the committee got to lay out their case: that the panel’s Republican majority had cherry-picked and distorted information in an effort to undercut the probe that’s now being led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. “FBI and DOJ officials did not ‘abuse’ the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign,” Democrats said in the 10-page document was written by Representative Adam Schiff. Americans now have two clashing, partisan accounts that claim to be true interpretations of a detailed court document that they can’t read for themselves because it remains classified. ### Swift Response “This politically driven document fails to answer serious concerns raised by the Majority’s memorandum about the use of partisan opposition research from one candidate, loaded with uncorroborated allegations, as a basis to ask a court to approve surveillance of a former associate of another candidate, at the height of a presidential campaign,” White House Secretary Sarah Sanders said in an emailed response. The four-page Republican memo was written under Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes and was released with Trump’s approval on Feb. 2\. It contends that a judge issued a surveillance warrant on Carter Page, a former low-level Trump campaign adviser, primarily based on an FBI warrant application that relied on a dossier of unverified allegations against Trump written by former British spy Christopher Steele. The Republican memo also asserts that the judge wasn’t told in the application that the dossier was funded by Trump’s campaign opponent Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. The FBI had opposed the release of the GOP memo, citing inaccuracies. ### Other Grounds Democrats counter that the Steele dossier wasn’t the only grounds cited for the warrant sought under the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act, and they say a footnote in the application did disclose that its origins were politically motivated. They also included details of subsequent warrant applications that were obtained to continue surveillance of Page. Trump delayed release of the Democratic memo, saying that he was responding to concerns about sensitive classified information in the document. The Democrats also sought to combat the impression that the surveillance warrant on Page was an original sin that tainted the Russia investigation: The Republican memo itself notes that the Federal Bureau of Investigation started investigating George Papadopoulos, another low-level Trump adviser with Russian contacts, in July 2016, three months before it first sought a warrant on Page. ### Mueller’s Probe Some Republicans have used the GOP memo to question Mueller’s continuing investigation into whether anyone close to Trump colluded in Russia’s campaign interference and whether the president sought to obstruct justice. Trump tweeted after the Republican memo was released that “this memo totally vindicates ‘Trump’ in probe” even as “the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on.” Sanders reiterated in her statement that “as the President has long stated, neither he nor his campaign ever colluded with a foreign power during the 2016 election, and nothing in today’s memo counters that fact.” Schiff has described the Republican memo as “an effort to circle the wagons around the White House and distract from the Russia probe.” But Representative Trey Gowdy — the only Republican on the Intelligence Committee who actually saw the classified intelligence used to write the memo — has said it has nothing to do with other aspects of the Russian investigation, which Mueller took over last year. “There’s going to be a Russia probe, even without a dossier,” Gowdy said this month on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” ## Transcript This evening the House Intelligence Committee voted to release the minority response to the majority's memo, the Nunes memo. We think this will help inform the public of the many distortions and inaccuracies in the majority memo. And once again, Mr. Nunes refused to answer the question. At the very end of the hearing He gave a very lawyerly written response or read a written response saying that the White House had not been involved in the actual drafting of the memo. But in terms of whether it was coordinated with the White House or they were consulted or strategized. The whole concept He refused to answer those questions and obviously that's a very important question for our committees. We still want Don Jr. to come back before our committee and answer questions about his conversations with his father that produced that very false and misleading statement. We want Steve Bannon to come back to this committee. We want Corey Lewandowski to come back before this committee. Corey Lewandowski didn't even claim privilege. He just says, I'm not really prepared to answer those questions. Has he been subpoenaed by the majority? The answer is no. That's inexcusable. And there are countless other examples. We know that Don Jr. was direct messaging WikiLeaks. We would like to subpoena [ UNKNOWN ] to get those direct messages but the majority has so far refused. It's time for this majority to make the decision to be serious investigators, to get the information we need that can either prove or disprove this allegations. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5174387/democrats-memo-released/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5174387/democrats-memo-released/"},"headline":"Democrats’ Memo Released Countering GOP Russia Probe Account","datePublished":"2018-02-24T21:40:50.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-12T09:00:14.138Z","description":"The White House deemed the document “politically driven\"","url":"https://time.com/5174387/democrats-memo-released/","keywords":["Congress","White House","Bloomberg","onetime","Trump Administration"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6ea1a871d27e03a1/698927148fd2ee81b135aa53/gettyimages-914610984.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Billy House / Bloomberg"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6ea1a871d27e03a1/698927148fd2ee81b135aa53/gettyimages-914610984.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"House Intelligence Cmte Debates Release Of Democratic Rebuttal To Nunes Memo","caption":"House Intelligence Cmte Debates Release Of Democratic Rebuttal To Nunes Memo","creditText":"Win McNamee—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/congress/","name":"Congress"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5174387/democrats-memo-released/","name":"Democrats’ Memo Released Countering GOP Russia Probe Account"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Democratic Response to the Nunes Memo Could Be Released Soon. 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