House Intel chairman: Democrats are ‘defending the dirty dossier with their own dirty dossier’

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said early Sunday that Democrats didn’t want their countermemo made public because it only “bolsters” a GOP memo alleging surveillance abuses and they are now “defending the dirty dossier with their own dirty dossier.”

“They knew over two weeks ago … they knew what they had to redact. They didn’t want this out,” Nunes told “Fox & Friends.” 

“And that’s why we wanted it out and they didn’t because it bolsters the case that we made specifically on the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] abuse that the court wasn’t notified that the Clinton campaign and the Democrats paid for this dirt that ended up being phony,” he added. {mosads}

Democrats on Saturday released a redacted memo in response to a Republican one made public earlier this month that alleged the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) abused their power to spy on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign aide.

Democrats argue that their memo added context to the process the FBI and DOJ used to obtain a warrant to spy on Page.

The Democratic memo claims the Republican memo was wrong to say that the FBI relied on the so-called Steele dossier — an unverified document that details President Trump’s connections to Russia — to support its warrant application.

Nunes, however, argued on Sunday that the Democratic memo only serves to back up the Republican memo and questioned why it took two weeks for it to be released.

“Just to sum up, this is almost like you have people defending the dirty dossier with their own dirty dossier,” Nunes said.

On Saturday night, Trump told Fox News host Jeanine Pirro that Democrats didn’t push too hard for their memo to be released because it only confirmed what the Republican memo said.

Trump initially blocked the release of the Democratic memo, citing concerns from the FBI and DOJ that it would reveal classified information. Similar concerns existed about the Republican memo.