Sen. Susan Collins said Tuesday that President Trump should follow the advice of the Justice Department and not release the memo about possible FISA abuses, but said the department should review the intelligence and release a redacted version.
“I believe that the president should follow the advice of his Justice Department, which so far is to not release it. But I think there is a compromise here, and that is to go through the report and redact those parts that are sensitive,” Ms. Collins, Maine Republican, said on CNN.
Ms. Collins was commenting on the House Intelligence Committee’s decision to release a memo written by Rep. Devin Nunes about alleged abuses in obtaining FISA warrants — surveillance abilities granted by the court under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But Ms. Collins warned that having both sides write reports of what is in the actual intelligence is also dangerous.
“I also don’t like the idea of these dueling reports because it’s going to be very hard for the public to know what is true,” she said.
Democrats wrote their own memo in response to Mr. Nunes, California Republican, but the committee voted not to release that memo.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan said Tuesday that the Democratic memo still needed to go through more vetting for potentially sensitive information prior to being released. He said the Republican memo already went through a similar review and was ready to be released. Mr. Ryan said when the Democratic memo is ready for release, the committee will likely make that document available as well.
• Sally Persons can be reached at spersons@washingtontimes.com.
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