The FBI is pushing back against any public release of a controversial memo from the House Intelligence Committee, saying it has "grave concerns" about its accuracy and was given little time to review it.
"The FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it. As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy," the FBI said in a statement on Wednesday.
Earlier on Wednesday Donald Trump's chief of staff said the White House plans to release the memo that Republicans say shows anti-Trump bias by the FBI and the Justice Department.
"It will be released here pretty quick, I think, and then the whole world can see it," John Kelly said in an interview on Fox News Radio, adding he had seen the four-page document and that White House lawyers were reviewing it.
Kelly's comments follow Trump's response to a Republican lawmaker after his State of the Union speech on Tuesday that suggested there was a "100 per cent chance" the memo would be made public.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told CNN on Wednesday the memo was still being reviewed and "there's always a chance" that it would not be released.
The memo has become a lightning rod in a bitter partisan fight over the FBI amid ongoing investigations into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US election and any possible collusion by Trump's campaign, something both Russia and Trump have denied.
Republicans, who blocked an effort to release a counterpoint memo by Democrats on the panel, have said it shows anti-Trump bias by the FBI and the Justice Department in seeking a warrant to conduct an intelligence eavesdropping operation.
Democrats have said the memo selectively uses highly classified materials in a misleading effort to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the Justice Department's Russia probe, and Deputy US Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who hired him.
The House panel this week voted along partisan lines to release the memo. Trump has until the weekend to decide whether to make it public.
The document was commissioned by Representative Devin Nunes, the House committee's Republican chairman who had recused himself from the panel's Russia probe.
Share
