Trump to approve release of Democrats' memo rebutting Republican claims of FBI abuses

The memo is expected to counter allegations of the FBI abusing the surveillance warrant process

President Donald Trump says he will release a memo by Congressional Democrats regarding FBI surveillance ( AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

US President Donald Trump has said that he will approve the release of Democrats' memo rebutting claims of FBI abuse laid out in a previous memo by Republicans.

"It's gonna be released soon. We're going to release a letter," Mr Trump said.

The Republicans' memo, authored by the Congressman Devin Nunes' staff, had alleged "serious violations of public trust" by the FBI over their conduct in the Russia investigation, per a statement from Mr Nunes.

The House Intelligence Committee voted unanimously to make the memo authored by ranking Democrat Adam Schiff public earlier this week.

The FBI had warned that the Republican memo left out crucial information that could have an impact on its accuracy.

It addressed issues Congressional Republicans had with a warrant issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, called a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant.

The memo claimed that the court issued the warrant based on a dossier authored by former UK intelligence officer Christopher Steele.

Republicans alleged that there was "clear evidence of [Mr Steele's] bias" against the President and that the former MI-6 officer had "anti-Trump financial and ideological motivations" since his fee for the memo was hired for by a research firm paid by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and opponent Hillary Clinton.

The firm, Fusion GPS, was started by a group of former Wall Street Journal reporters and began opposition research on Mr Trump in 2015 under a contract from the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news outlet.

Once Mr Trump became the Republican nominee, the DNC and Ms Clinton's campaign paid to have Fusion GPS continue its research.

It then hired Mr Steele, who had previous ties to the US intelligence community and was an FBI informant, who authored the now-infamous dossier between June and December 2016.

The Nunes memo argued that Mr Steele should have been terminated by the bureau from his role as a paid FBI source at least one month earlier than he was because he violated confidentiality rules by speaking to the media and that senior officials within the Department of Justice (DOJ) were aware of Mr Steele's biases.

The memo also appeared to stoke more partisanship by naming DOJ officials who were holdovers from the administration of Barack Obama and signed off on the FISA warrant applications - former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and Mr Comey.

However, it also named current Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who was promoted by Mr Trump and signed off on the warrant for Carter Page, a former campaign adviser on foreign policy.

The memo claimed the only reason the warrant on Mr Page was Mr Steele's dossier, despite the former MI-6 agent's anti-Trump bias.

In response, Mr Schiff said at the time that the "Republican document mischaracterises highly sensitive classified information that few members of Congress have seen, and which Chairman Nunes himself chose not to review," Mr Schiff said.

He also said the memo was a "shameful effort to discredit" the FBI and DOJ, during the investigation into the Trump campaign's alleged collusion with Russian officials.

The White House has not announced a release date as yet.