While Walking Out After SOTU, Hot Mic Captures Trump Revealing Plans for Blockbuster FISA Memo
Following his very first State of the Union address, President Donald Trump was caught on a hot mic saying he will “100 percent” approve the release of a classified memo created by GOP members on the House Intelligence Committee.
As Trump was shaking hands with lawmakers after delivering his speech, a live camera feed caught Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina saying, “Let’s release the memo.”
“Don’t worry, 100 percent,” Trump replied, while smiling. “Can you imagine?”
The House Intelligence Committee voted along party lines Monday evening to release the controversial memo that some members of Congress have said details abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act under the Obama administration.
After the vote, Trump had a maximum of five days to object to the memo’s release.
Just hours before Trump told Duncan that he will release the document, though, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement that there were “no current plans” for it to be made public.
“Contrary to a published report, there are no current plans to release the House Intelligence Committee’s memo,” she said. “The president has not seen or been briefed on the memo or reviewed its contents.”
CNN reported that according to two people “familiar with the matter,” Trump has told his aides he wants to ensure that the memo is released as soon as possible.
However, he wanted to wait until after the State of the Union speech to do so, in order to avoid distracting from his message of unity.
As The Western Journal reported, Republican members of Congress have described the information contained in the four-page document as “shocking,” “troubling” and “alarming.” At least one representative compared the activities contained in the memo to those of the Russian KGB.
The committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, said the vote made Monday a “very sad day, I think, in the history of this committee,” according to Fox News.
“Today this committee voted to put the president’s personal interests, perhaps their own political interests, above the national interests,” the Democrat said, announcing the vote to the media.
Schiff said the vote was strictly along party lines, with no Democrats voting to release the details of the memo.
But speaking Tuesday on “Fox & Friends,” Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina said the document would be “embarrassing” to Schiff.
“(L)ook, my Democratic colleagues didn’t want us to find this information,” Gowdy said. “They did everything they could to keep us from finding this information.”
“I think it will be embarrassing to Adam Schiff once people realize the extent to which he went to keep them from learning any of this,” he added.
FBI Director Christopher Wray reviewed the document on Sunday, according to the Fox News report, and was “asked to point out inaccuracies or other issues with the warning.”
Wray responded by promising to have “his people to take a look at it.”
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