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A four-page memo was written by Republican staff members for Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, that alleges that the Federal Bureau of Investigation "may have relied on politically motivated or questionable sources" to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant in the early phases of the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. The #ReleaseTheMemo social media campaign emerged in mid-January 2018 during the ongoing Special Counsel investigation advocating the release of the memo. The hashtag was used by Mark Meadows and other House conservatives before it spread virally. According to Hamilton 68, a project started by Clint Watts, Russian-linked bots on Twitter helped spread the controversial hashtag.

Shortly after becoming a trending topic, the memo drew polarizing reactions from government officials and the media, generally along party lines. The Justice Department (DOJ) released a letter to Congress calling a release of the memo without review reckless it because it could expose intelligence sources and methods, while President Donald Trump called for its public release. FBI Director Christopher A. Wray was allowed to read the memo and did so on January 28. On January 29, the majority of the House Intelligence Committee, disregarded the DOJ's warnings and voted to approve its release. The Republicans also voted against making public a competing memo Democrats had crafted, according to Adam Schiff. The group also rejected a proposal to give the Justice Department and FBI more time to vet the Republican document but the President has five days to review it before it can be released.

Purported contents of the memo

The memo was produced by a small group of House Republicans and staff as part of its investigation into how the FBI used the Trump–Russia dossier. It reportedly states that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein approved a FISA application to surveil Carter Page in the spring of 2017. The memo accuses the FBI and the Justice Department of failing to provide enough information about Christopher Steele to a FISA court judge. The memo "suggests that the FBI may have relied on politically motivated or questionable sources to justify its request for a secret surveillance warrant" in the early phases of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.

Republicans sought a committee vote that would request the release through the President which would keep the memo confined to committee members until the President responds. The memo could be made public by a vote in the House of Representatives if the President does not act or denies the request but no vote is scheduled for the full House. Glenn Greenwald called the campaign "a bizarre spectacle" since the Republicans are "holding a document that only they can release, while pretending to be advocating for its release." Nunes and the House Intelligence Committee have denied access to the memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee and to the FBI, who stated a desire to investigate any alleged wrongdoing. The Justice Department sent a letter to Nunes and called the release of the memo reckless. Nunes' panel also refused to allow the FBI and the Department of Justice to view the memo, despite their requests. WikiLeaks has offered a reward for anyone that submits the document to them and used the hashtag with a link to their upload site.

Spread on social media

According to the Hamilton 68 project run by the bipartisan Alliance for Securing Democracy which tracks Russian propaganda efforts on Twitter, the hashtag was promoted by Russian twitter bot accounts, with a 230,000 percent spike in the promotion of the hashtag by these accounts. According to an analysis by CNN the hashtag was pushed by over a thousand newly created accounts, of which 460 were "egg accounts" without even a profile picture. A source familiar with Twitter's internal analysis said that the accounts responsible for the widely trending hashtag were "organically American". According to Twitter, although a large number of Russian accounts were also involved, they were insufficient to reach the top of Twitter's internal analysis which showed the retweets are coming from inside the United States from authentic American accounts.

Responses

On January 19, a growing number of Republicans began demanding the release of the alleged memo. Among those that got the chance to read the memo in the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility described it as "shocking" and "worse than Watergate." In response to news surrounding the memo, Fox News host Sean Hannity directed a message at former FBI Director Robert Mueller, saying "Your witch hunt is now over. Time to close the doors." Donald Trump Jr. has also been a major proponent in its release.

Democrats have pushed back on the memo, with Adam Schiff, Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, releasing a statement saying that it is "ife with factual inaccuracies" that is "meant only to give Republican House members a distorted view of the FBI." In response to the memo, Democrats in the House Intelligence Committee drafted a ten-page rebuttal memo on January 24th. However, it was denied a public release on the same day the original memo was approved for release.

References

1. ^ Jarrett, Laura (January 24, 2018). "Justice Dept.: 'Reckless' to release Nunes memo without review". CNN.
2. ^ Parker, Ashley; Helderman, Rosalind S.; Dawsey, Josh; Leonnig, Carol D. (2018-01-27). "Trump sought release of classified Russia memo, putting him at odds with Justice Department". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2018-01-29. investigation into Russian meddling," "written by staff members for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and suggests that the FBI may have relied on politically motivated or questionable sources to justify its request for a secret surveillance warrant in the investigation's early phase.
3. ^ "Russia-linked Twitter accounts are working overtime to help Devin Nunes and WikiLeaks". Business Insider. Retrieved 2018-01-25.
4. ^ Ryan Sit (24 January 2018). "Russian Bots Might Be Behind Controversial #ReleaseTheMemo Campaign, Democrats Say". Newsweek. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
5. "Right's push to release memo on FBI 'abuses' endorsed by Russian bots". NBC News. Retrieved 2018-01-26.
6. Parker, Ashley; Helderman, Rosalind S.; Dawsey, Josh; Leonnig, Carol D. (2018-01-27). "Trump sought release of classified Russia memo, putting him at odds with Justice Department". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2018-01-29.
7. ^ Demirjian, Karoun; Barrett, Devlin (2018-01-29). "Republicans vote to release memo alleging FBI missteps while surveilling Trump campaign operative". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2018-01-29.
8. "House panel votes to release secret memo". POLITICO. Retrieved 2018-01-30.
9. "House Republicans quietly investigate perceived corruption at DOJ, FBI". POLITICO. Retrieved 2018-01-25.
10. Fandos, Nicholas; Goldman, Adam; LaFraniere, Sharon (January 28, 2018). "Secret Memo Hints at a New Republican Target: Rod Rosenstein". The New York Times. Retrieved January 29, 2018.
11. ^ "Senate panel denied access to Nunes FISA memo". CNN. Retrieved 2018-01-25. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
12. Liautaud, Alexa (January 25, 2018). "These two deep-state conspiracy theories are driving Republicans nuts today". Vice News. Retrieved January 29, 2018.
15. O'Sullivan, Donie. "Hundreds of newly created Twitter accounts pushed #ReleaseTheMemo". CNNMoney. Retrieved 2018-01-26.
16. ^ Collins, Ben; Ackerman, Spencer (2018-01-23). "Source: Twitter Pins #ReleaseTheMemo on Republicans, Not Russia". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2018-01-25.
17. ^ "GOP reps demand release of 'shocking' surveillance memo". The Hill. 19 January 2018.
18. "Mark Meadows". Twitter. 18 January 2018.
19. "Steve King". Twitter. 18 January 2018.
20. "Republicans call for release of memo on alleged surveillance abuses". CBS News. 19 January 2018.
21. Demirjian, Karoun (2018-01-24). "House Democrats plan memo to counter GOP's, as calls to declassify files grow". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2018-01-25.
22. Eli Lake (25 January 2018). "Russian Bots Are Right: #Releasethememo". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 26 January 2018.

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