Schiff Memo Gamesmanship: Did He Purposefully Load the Dem Rebuttal With Sensitive Material?
Trump: “The Democrats sent a very political and long response memo which they knew, because of sources and methods (and more), would have to be heavily redacted”
Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) is the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and he appears to be playing a dangerous game with the Democrat rebuttal to Republican memo written by Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA). Released last week, the Nunes memo alleges that the FBI under Comey and Obama used questionable means to obtain FISA warrants on at least one member of then-candidate Trump’s campaign team.
The House Intelligence Committee voted to release the Nunes memo, and the White House insisted on redactions after consulting with the FBI and others in the intelligence community.
Democrats immediately wanted to issue a rebuttal memo, and Schiff set about constructing one. This should not have been issue, as they have every right to rebut the Republican memo.
However, Schiff—who recently made the bizarre allegation that Russians are using the 2nd Amendment to “get Americans to kill each other”—appears to have purposefully loaded the Democrat rebuttal memo with sensitive materials in order to set the stage for undermining President Trump.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/962330457886076928
The Democratic rebuttal to a highly publicized GOP memo alleging government surveillance abuse is filled with sensitive details, a source told Fox News – claiming this was done intentionally to pressure the White House to either block the memo’s release or significantly redact it.
. . . . “The White House has received a memorandum from the minority members of the House Select Permanent Committee on Intelligence. As stated many times, the Administration will follow the same process and procedure with this memorandum from the minority as it did last week, when it received the memorandum from the majority,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
The source who spoke to Fox News has read the Democrats’ rebuttal memo, and said it is filled with information on sources and methods taken from original documents.
While the source described this as a way to put the White House in a difficult spot, Schiff maintained publicly that he wants to make sure the White House “does not redact our memo for political purposes.” A Schiff aide referred Fox News back to those comments when asked about the claim that the memo intentionally contained sources and methods.
The Democrat’s Schiff memo has not been released, but Nunes says that he is not surprised that the White House is asking for redaction of the national security sources and methods.
The Washington Examiner reports:
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said “it’s no surprise” that the Justice Department recommended to President Trump that he block the release of the Democratic memo without redactions.
“Along with other Intelligence Committee Republicans, I had warned that the Democratic memo contains many sources and methods,” Nunes said in a statement late Friday. “Ranking Member [Adam] Schiff pledged to seek the input of the Department of Justice and FBI regarding the memo’s public release, and it’s no surprise that these agencies recommended against publishing the memo without redactions.”
Odd why are all @TheDemocrats not posting the letter from #Rosenstein and #Wray that clearly states the #SchiffMemo violated long standing principles in the intelligence and law enforcement community. Why would you write something like that @AdamSchiffCA #ReleaseTheDemMemo pic.twitter.com/QXJlHjWRAV
— Rosie memos (@almostjingo) February 10, 2018
Why indeed?
The answer seems clear. Schiff is making the media rounds claiming that President Trump has a “double-standard” about release of sensitive materials and is trumpeting Trump’s “newfound respect for the FBI,” while completely ignoring the redactions made to the Nunes memo at the FBI’s request.
The Washington Examiner reports:
Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, quipped that the White House suddenly has a “newfound admiration for the FBI” after President Trump declined to release the memo prepared by Democratic members of the panel.
That being one week after Trump allowed the release of the GOP memo about alleged U.S. government surveillance abuses over the protestations of the Justice Department and FBI, Schiff explained during an interview with Bill Maher on his HBO show “Real Time.”
“This week, though, the White House apparently has a newfound admiration for the FBI,” Schiff said. “We wouldn’t want to release anything that the FBI might be concerned about.”
Schiff had set the stage for his gamesmanship earlier in the week.
Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the committee, had said earlier in the week that he feared that Mr. Trump would play politics with the dueling memos.
Mr. Schiff, who has traded bitter Twitter messages with the president after Mr. Trump called him one of “the biggest liars and leakers” in Washington, warned this week that Mr. Trump might call for “political edits” intended to erase embarrassing parts of the memo, not information related to national security.
It seems clear that Schiff purposefully loaded his memo with items he knew would need to be redacted so that he could later attack the president as a hypocrite.
Schiff memo purposefully filled up w/sources-methods he knew would need to be redacted. After lying re how majority memo would endanger natl sec & compromise good sources-methods, he suddenly became clueless on same exact assessment of his own memo. Teammates in media play along.
— Lee Zeldin (@RepLeeZeldin) February 10, 2018
Schiff’s clumsy and amateur attempt to play with the big dogs is simultaneously cute and cringe-worthy. He’s no match for Trump, and the Democrats lose this one. Bigly.
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Democrats will continue to shoot themselves in the foot because they always underestimate the intelligence of the American people.
I will not deny that sometimes a lot of people give reason to doubt our collective intelligence, after all, Obama was elected 2 times, and a lot of people voted for Hillary. But in the long run, you can’t win at 3D chess with tic-tac-toe tactics.
“Donald Trump: President Obama Is Now Caught Up In Hillary Clinton’s Lies About Her Email Server”
Adam full of Schiff can’t distract U.S. from the truth, no matter what crappy, lyin’ memo he makes up!
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/10/25/donald_trump_president_obama_is_now_caught_up_in_hillary_clintons_lies_about_her_email_server.html
IBIB.
“Trump said at a rally in Florida on Tuesday. “One of the most shocking revelations to date. As you may remember, President Obama claimed to have no knowledge whatsoever of Clinton’s illegal email server — ‘I have no knowledge, no knowledge’ — This guy. He’s as bad as she is,” Trump said about the president.
“That means Obama is now into the act,” Trump said. “And now Iunderstand how, despite his hatred of the Clintons… now I understand why he pushed her. He didn’t want to get caught up in the big lie. He’s caught up now!”
This one got called at The_Donald on Reddit shortly after he announced that he was going to write a memo. Nobody was fooled.
Correction: Nobody was surprised. The idea that given the chance to engage in a fair fight or a foul one, that Trump would chose to be fair was not even considered a possibility.
Will either memo matter? No.
What part of “identical process for both memos” is unfair, you lying sack of hog squeeze?
I see you made it over the wall again.
Amazing: you’ve nailed it again.
It’s a troll. Feel free to ignore it.
I have pointed out several times Schiff is a fraud. His links to Hollywood and Defense Contractors is very suspect. I am looking for a Defense Contractor link between him and McCain.
https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/industries?cid=N00009585&cycle=2018&type=C
Adam Schiff is a top recipient from the following industries in the 2017 – 2018 election cycle:
TV production (#1)
Motion Picture production & distribution (#2)
Top Contributors, 2017 – 2018
Contributor Total Individuals PACs
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe $22,661 $12,661 $10,000
Walt Disney Co $19,030 $14,030 $5,000
Centene Corp $16,400 $6,400 $10,000
Paul, Weiss et al $16,000 $16,000 $0
Time Warner
In 2000 when he won:
Moveon.org $39,612
DreamWorks SKG $20,750
League of Conservation Voters $19,428
Time Warner $18,850
Operating Engineers Union $16,000
People for the American Way $15,800
International Longshoremens Assn
His links to seditionist George Soros are far more disturbing:
https://www.usapoliticstoday.org/adam-schiffs-ties-george-soros/
I’m a bit concerned.
This misadventure is a clear loser for the D’rats. The whine about the President’s “newfound respect for the FBI” blows any D’rat fantasy about the President being “unpatriotic” by feuding with the FBI.
And this shabby tactic cements the claim that Schiff is a liar and leaker.
So this seems to be not just a loser, but a self-inflicted disaster.
Now, is Schiff really this stupid? If he’s doing something clever here, I can’t see it.
Honestly, I think he is really this stupid, Tom. Democrats have worked for decades to ensure that all Americans are dumbed down, but they put special emphasis on their own voters whom they want deaf, dumb, blind, and brain-dead. This plays well to that zombie base because it’s easy to understand for the dim-witted and unintelligent. Everyone else, though, is not fooled. At some point, the establishment’s disdain for Americans will be rejected, and this looks like a good start to me.
The strategy is recognizable, but you have mixed up the parties.
YS, you are such a useful idiot, but you’re the best kind for the left: clueless, brain-dead, and willfully ignorant.
Here’s what your party thinks of you (nope, not “those other people,” YOU):
https://twitter.com/SheriffClarke/status/947201898075115520
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/223578-obamacare-architect-lack-of-transparency-helped-law-pass
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/300432/party-civil-rights-kevin-d-williamson
While you yip and yap your party’s line on conservative websites, your party’s leadership dismisses you as dumb as dirt. Useful, of course, because while they know you can never move normal, thinking people, that pie-in-the-sky mission helps you feel useful (Idiot). They know you will vote for them, protest for them, and otherwise help their cause, so to Democrat leadership, this kind of busy work is a joke, you are a joke.
As a related aside, you’re a joke here, too.
Yellowsnake is not so much the joke as he/she/it is the punchline. Great analysis FS!
Heh, thanks, Leslie, and spot on!
So, ‘Brilliant’ – are u for or against deficits? Did u believe the republicans when they claimed deficits were going to destroy our economy? Now, deficits – Meh.
Look you can call me all the names you want if it helps you believe the BS you are eating and excreting.
You have to be willfully blind to not see that I think for myself. Again, believe otherwise if it helps you live in fantasy land.
I don’t believe in either party. I just see that conservatives/republicans are more of a threat to my liberty. Your belief in the supernatural is fine with me. But when you force decisions that affect my life based on your superstitions, that infringes my freedom.
When the new tax code subsidizes your beliefs but won’t allow me to deduct my STOL taxes (yes I itemize), I get pissed. When 1st, Christie and now Trump won’t allow us to get our fair share of tax money to build a desperately needed tunnel, I get pissed. That tunnel is more important to the security of the USA then more military spending.
When you put a grifter in the WH, that infringes on I me. You people made a corrupt deal. Trump can play at being President and grab whatever he can, get tax cuts perfectly tailored to his crime family; as long as he picks judges from your list and more or less enforces your ideology. Do you honestly believe that he believes as you do?
Look, we start with different premises and experiences. But you do yourself a disservice when you call me stupid or try to claim that I follow anyone’s party line. You are fighting a rear-guard action. All I am doing is whispering a little doubt into your certainty.
Ban me anytime you like – kind of like Trump only letting out the memo that he claims vindicates him. It doesn’t vindicate him and you know it. Trump is a bully. Of course he will take every opportunity to hit below the belt. Fine. But in supporting Trump without skepticism you have given up any claim to the high road. I never supported Obama that way. As soon as he brought Goldman Sachs into his cabinet, I knew him for what he was.
Try using your brain instead of sticking to the ideology!
We once had an extended dialog. Then you disappointed when you fell back on your talking points. I doubt you have learned much. Me- I actually come here because I do learn things and change my mind. I changed my mind to some degree on guns. When I admitted that, your brilliant readers took that as an opportunity to try to insult me. They made assumptions that I would be a ‘bad’ gun owner. That I wouldn’t get training and would be unsafe. How the hell could they possibly know that?
Your paycheck depends on you touting the party line. So which of us is mendacious? Which of us is using his/her whole brain? I doubt you were worth the time I spent writing this!
YS rote:
How the hell could they possibly know that?
Doesn’t that apply to your arguments here? Unless you serve in a capacity that allows access to the dem memo, you haven’t seen the memo. So you don’t know what’s in it.
There is, however, one proven fact we can bring to the discussion – Schiff and the dems lied about the issue of national security in the first memo. They told us that the original memo should not be released because it would expose NS data. The memo was released and there was no NS data in it – none at all. Schiff, et al, lied about the issue for political gain, and that needs to be taken into account in evaluating their claims.
I can just see the veins sticking out on Yellowstains scrawny little neck while he feverishly hammered out that last little factless hissy fit.
Hope Grandma washed the racing stripes out of his onsies and made him a nice cup of cocoa to help him recover.
Okay, that made me laugh, Murky. Hee! 🙂
Damn! – You’ve nailed it again: TWICE in one post.
Give credit where credit is due: to your medication.
As I understand it, the yellow snake is a Jamaican boa, considered an endangered species. Makes sense.
The majority of “the mob” that mindlessly follows Dems will only remember the Schiff lies.
Fortunately, they are a minority of voters.
I may need new glasses. I read too quickly and this is what I saw:
The majority of “the mob” that mindlessly follows Dems will only remember the Schitt flies.
Timing is everything.
The Dems shut down the US government to keep the Nunes memo off the Sunday talk circuit. Here we have the reverse. The release of the memo was so timed so as to force the President to decline to release the memo in time for it to be the main talking point on the Sunday talks.
Look, there is NO rebuttal, of any substance, to the point covered in the Nunes memo. The Dems know this. Their strategy has not changed. They ware attempting to keep everything about the surveillance hidden in order to protect Obama and the upper echelon of the Obama Administration. In the long run, they can not win, But, in the short run, they can slow the juggernaut. Watch for the tactics of the Dems become more and more aggressive.
If there was no rebuttal, Trump could have crushed them. He could have announced that them memo should not be released, but in the interest of proving once and for all that the democrats have nothing, he believed that the greater good was to release it. That would have called what you believe to be a bluff. It would have been devastating.
But in the deepest reaches of your heart you know that Trump is a liar and a grifter. Grifters never give up the game no matter how transparent the lie has become. They just invent another lie.
Matthew 7, verses 3-5
“3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Your argument? Democrats are more hypocritical? By that reasoning you might not notice that the plank was in your eye. Would you? SAD
Trump a “grifter”? Hilarious. The opposite of a grifter is a self-made billionaire. A “grifter” is somebody like Bill or Hillary Clinton.
Other than that, your post is more hilarity.
No, the Dem memo has to receive the same scrutiny and be subject to the same rules as the Rep memo was. Now, we know, from Schiff by the way, that the Rep memo was altered at the behest of the FBI, because it may have exposed security interests which would have been detrimental to the nation. So, all that is happening here is the same things. And, Schiff, et al, knows this. So, the timing. There was no way for the memo to be corrected and returned to the President before the weekend. And, as the President can not, in good conscience, release the memo in its present state [with seemingly solid objections from the FBI and DOJ] this allows Schiff and the Dems to spend the weekend whining that trump does not want the truth to come out and every other criticism that they can come up with. And, there is NO guarantee that the memo will not be withdrawn with the complaint that the changes gutted the Dem argument. If is subject to redaction, the Dems will make the same claim, that the information harmful to the President was redacted. See how this works? It is all about appearances, not substance. There is NO way that the Dems can rebut the Nunes memo with facts.
“Seemingly solid” is right. Maybe the FBI and DOJ’s objections were solid. But given that the memo (and other things that have been released) heavily implicates both of them, given them veto power over what gets redacted was a foolish gift from Trump.
Trump and his advisors are not stupid. They did not give the FBI and DOJ any kind of power to decide anything about the Schiff memo. All they are doing is making the Dems play by the same rules as the Reps. You have to let go of the “Trump is an idiot” point of view.
Here is the whole thing in a nutshell. The Dems have NO factual rebuttal to the Nunes memo and they never did. We may never know what specifics in the Schiff memo were deemed to be hazardous to legitimate US security interests. The Committee was going to vote to declassify whatever the Dems presented, so as not to appear partisan and obstructionist. They did this knowing that it would never pass muster with the FBI and DOJ and that Trump would have to send it back to committee to be fixed, with input from Justice.
Now we will have to wait and see what the Dems do with the memo. They may clean it up and represent it. Or they may simply cry foul and withdraw the memo.
Yellow tail, you put the ‘butt’ back in rebuttal.
Thank you!
Trump is not displaying a double standard. First he would need to have a standard.
What I like about Trump is that he has exposed the self-proclamations of the right that conservatives are more moral, ethical. factual, or that their tenets can stand up to rigorous examination. The cognitive dissonance is breathtaking. I thank him for that. Maybe I will go out and buy a Trump Pretzel.
Trump the Grifter is the ultimate master of the sucker punch.
No, he’s playing the TRIPLE standard.
That’s why he’s Trump. And why you live in your mother’s basement.
That dude looks like Latka Gravas, only dumberer.
LOL!
For those of you too young for the cultural reference to the TV show “Taxi”, check this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjvY_-w12kQ
No wonder I have been reading his announcements using that voice.
Schiff is trying to put the FBI/DoJ toothpaste back into the tube.
Comey’s “guilty but sorry, not guilty” speech on Hillary isn’t going away no matter how hard Schiff wishes.
Schiff’s mission is to stall the investigation until Nancy Pelosi takes that gavel back and The House can go forward with impeachment for jaywalking if they have to. He is determined to see this through to the bitter end……For The Party!
I see LI hasn’t bothered to include all the “What is he hiding?” messages from Pelosi, Schumer, Warner and other Democrats beyond Schiff himself. That – that is the point. They see political advantage in behaving like schoolchildren. Trump has told them to re-do their essay and to do it right this time. I cannot imagine a more appropriate response.
The Republicans didn’t get theirs released without alterations either. I remember Schiff complaining about them… it felt like only yesterday.
They truly are on the run.
Don’t be surprised by an amazingly desperate move by the left: like serious multi-city violence and/or terrorism. And don’t be surprised by the swamp’s own desperate acts: like trying to kill Trump.
Yellosnake,
Mark Twain once said, “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
You seriously need to heed that advice…..
Mark Twain also said:
“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”
(Substitute “democrat party” for “world.”)
He should call Schiff For Brain’s bluff and announce that he’s sending it back for them to rewrite it themselves, then on Wednesday he will release WHATEVER they write.
“Schiff appears to be playing a dangerous game”
How so? Will there be any consequence to his treachery? Nope.
As for Yellow Snake, every time he jumps the shark he drags the NeverTrumpers along with him. Even a fool can serve a useful purpose.
The Democrats’ game here is to undermine President Trump, to make him look like a hypocrite and liar. They are already being exposed as clueless bumblers trying to set a cynical, political “trap” for the president. This will alienate any Obama to Trump voters, not bring them back.
Any more dangerous than WaSSerman Schultz played? Or hillary klinton? Or obama? Or holder? Or lynch? Or Bill Clinton?
They are used to no consequences for dangerous games, especially in treason for profit.
That desperately needs to change.
Right AG Sessionszzzzzzz?
Bring on Trey Gowdy for replacement attorney general.
I agree up to the last point. I don’t believe the alienation of Obama voters who flipped to Trump will be significant enough to matter.
Fen, many obama voters were sick of the fecklessness of bush, and voted for obama in desperation. MANY of them have deep regrets, and and now see Trump as the savior they hoped obama was because of the scam of obama’s fake image.
The polls have Trump’s approval rating HIGHER than obama’s at this point in obama’s disgraced presidency. And you KNOW the polls are corrupt – so the number must be even higher for Trump, and probably was actually lower then for hussein.
We’re on to their b.s.
I haven’t followed the thread well, but the link is probably not out of place here. Interesting read.
https://www.thenation.com/article/russiagate-or-intelgate/