Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) on Sunday blasted a GOP colleague on the House Intelligence Committee for failing to disclose key information related to a recently released controversial memo.
Swalwell said he does not know why Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) and other Republicans on the panel are hiding context for the memo’s claim that the Department of Justice abused critical surveillance authorities during the 2016 campaign.
The Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign funded some of the research underlying the warrant, a key point that the memo says was withheld from a judge when seeking the warrant.
According to Democrats, authorities did tell the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that information included in the warrant request came from a politically motivated source. Democrats also say the politically motivated research, known as the Steele dossier, was not key to the application for the warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
“There was a barrage of evidence that they presented to the court including a disclosure that the Steele dossier had a political motivation,” Swalwell told host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.” {mosads}
Swalwell said Republicans are not accurately quoting a transcript of their December interview with former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
“Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information,” the memo says.
Democrats dispute that is what McCabe said in his testimony, which occurred behind closed doors. The transcript has not been released.
“Well I asked Andy McCabe, that is not what he said. They have the transcript. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t quote from the transcript. They did disclose it was a politically motivated source, that is what the judge needed to know,” Swalwell continued.
Stewart, who was part of the Fox News interview, maintained that the memo’s claims were accurate. He said he would’ve been “furious” if he was the judge of the court that granted the warrant and this information was withheld from him.
“It clearly is relevant. It clearly is important,” Stewart said.