5 00 a. M. Here on the u. S. East coast. It is the memo in a everyothat talking about. And does it discredit the Russia Investigation . Congressional supporters of the u. S. President are being accused of trying to do just that. They allege that the fbi improperly targeted for surveillance a former Trump Campaign adviser. The contents of the controversial memo are highly disputed. Critics say it only on shows part of the picture. And misrepresents the testimony of former fbi Deputy Director andrew mccabe. Here is more now from jim sciutto In Washington. I think it is terrible. Reporter the president and republicans leveling a new broad side at the fbi. With a four page memo alleging the bureau abused its Surveillance Authority in seeking a warrant to monitor carter page during the 2016
election. Its been a tough fight. Reporter the disputed memo authorized by the staff of devin nunes Claims Mccabe says the page warrant would not have been sought without a dossier on trumps possible con
application based on a stream of intelligence separate from the dossi dossier. this includes information from the australian government can which learned that another trump campaign adviser, george papadopoulous, had been offered damaging information about hillary clinton from an individual with ties to the russian government. with these accusations swirling, christopher wray addressed fbi employees today via video, this reported by shall i mondimon prokupecz, and times are tough but went on to give a bucking up speech to the rank and file saying that the american people read the news papers and watch tv, but your work is all that matters. actions speak louder than words. jim sciutto, cnn, washington. so again, the main allegation in the memo, that the justice department misused the fisa court to target former trump adviser carter page. but to explain exactly what fisa is, what that court is and
whether or not that is true, we don t know. the very secretive nature of the fisa court is the reason that it may be hard for the justice department to come forward and say here is what is happening and why they think the memo is wrong. tom foreman, thanks for the explanation. and now more about the man behind the memo, the chair man the house intelligence committee republican devin nunes. he s been kricriticized and som say hurting the investigation. the first interview he gave with us to fox news and he slammed the democrats. these are not honest actors. they know they are not being honest. and i get tired of playing whac-a-mole every day with the democrats on this committee who never wanted to start this investigation in the first place. so there is clear evidence collusion, but it just happens to be with hillary clinton and
where do you fall? i think it is another step in what has been an ongoing effort to undermine the legitimacy and credibility of this investigation which remember is supposed to be looking into russia s interference in the u.s. presidential election, something that is important to everybo everybody. and we ve seen a number of efforts to really get people thinking about something very different. in this case it is an allegation that this was politically motivated and inspired investigation that lacks all credibility. unfortunately, it is very destructive and i think if you listen to what senator mccain said after the memo was released, this is an attack on the legitimacy of the fbi, an unfair attack on the justice department and that it is taking us away from this most important
undermine the mueller investigation. reporter: now there is a fight brewing between the u.s., the justice department and the fbi. president trump declined to say if he had confidence in the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein who oversees the russia investigation. now none of this changes special counsel robert mueller s investigation. this is still going along full speed. one of the next things to find out is if the president will set down for an interview with him. but the release of this memo at least in the eyes of the white house and the president, they believe it helps discredit the russia investigation. now, many republicans across washington said that was not the point of it, they said that is not the case. it is separate from that. the reality here that was the president goes into the weekend where he will be spending it in mar-a-lago, will he make a decision to have a change either at the justice department with rod rosenstein or will he fire bob mueller. those are still