able to catch up here a little bit more on is what the schiff memo outlines is the fisa warrant here on carter page was not an attempt to spy on the trump campaign itself but that they were specifically interested in carter page and learning more about the contacts that he would have had with russian officials. and what s significant as i pointed out what i spoke to just a few moments ago, carter page told the intelligence committee himself that during the time in which the fisa court would have been while this warrant would have been on him, he traveled to russia and admitted to the committee he was meeting with key russian officials. so there certainly would have been evidence to both initially seek this application but also to renew it based on what carter page himself told the committee. mike, i don t know if you were able to hear the sound we ran a second ago from devin nunes. i wanted to get your thoughts about what he said essentially saying he wanted the democrats memo put
that the reason the yahoo article was there was not to corroborate steele but it was because carter page had then responded to something in that article and denied it was true. and so forth. it supports the critique of the memo, but i have to agree that was a million news cycles ago for the political purpose of giving mr. trump supporters takeaway they can feel satisfied that the whole investigation is not is garbage, it succeeded wildly regardless of the actual facts. all right. we ll continue with our panel of experts and reporters here in just a second. again, breaking news this hour that democrats on the house intelligence committee have released their memo on the fisa court process. their rebuttal if you will to the republican memo that came out a few weeks ago. much more coverage here on msnbc after this.
their russia contacts. let s bring in our panel now frank, former assistant director for counterintelligence at the fbi, jill wine banks former assistant water gate special prosecutor and kimberly atkins, chief washington reporter for the boston herald. i want to start with paul manafort s statement after gates pleaded guilty. you see here on the screen i continue to maintain my innocence, i had hoped and expected my business colleague would have had the strength to continue the battle to prove our innocence. for reasons yet to surface he chose to do otherwise. this does not alter my commitment to defend myself against the untrue piled up charges contained in the indictments against me. so, frank, what is mueller trying to do here with the gates deal and these new charges against manafort? well, he s taking a page right out of the playbook for organized crime cases. you need to flip people and get to your target and get people informing on the person above them and keep going.
operation, part of a political research document funded by the clinton campaign was not a critical part, was only part of the information presented to the fisa court and that the fisa warrant could have been issued even without it. which was the core claim that the nunes memo had made. a couple points that the schiff memo says, i want to read on screen here, it says that the doj met the rigor, transparency and evidentiary by demonstrating contemporaneous evidence of russia s election interference, concerning russian links and outreach to trump campaign officials and page s history with russian intelligence. there s also a redacted portion here in their key bullet points but it refers to page s suspicious activities in 2016 including a trip to moscow. what s interesting about it is the house intelligence committee interviewed carter page in the course of their investigation, which is now going on for nearly a year and carter page told the committee himself about multiple trips that he t
and the fact that they re trying to suggest it was opposition research that was supported by the democrats was actually specified in the fisa application. so, again, four different judges, four judges appointed by a republican president and they came to the same conclusion that the fisa application should be granted. so, congresswoman, where do we go from here? what happens on monday morning when congress is back in session, when the white house staff is looking at the next steps, the next days ahead, where does this memo set us up to go from here? actually, i think the memo should just be shelved because we have important work to do. and we should return to the investigation and the many individual witnesses that we still want to hear from.