Breaking: Trump Approves Release of Classified Nunes Memo

Intelligence Community Warned Against Release

President Donald Trump has just declassified and approved the release of the highly-controversial, classified Nunes memo, which was created as a partisan attack on the FBI designed to discredit the agency, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and the entire Russia investigation against Trump and his team.

Fox News announced President Trump has declassified the memo, and CNN reports he did not redact any information:

The memo will be sent back to the House Intelligence Committee and Chairman Nunes will decide how and when it will be publicly released. It is expected to be released later today.

Republican House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes drafted the memo after being given access to classified information on FISA surveillance. Nunes has been accused of acting in direct service of the president, rather than in his role as head of a huge and traditionally bipartisan oversight organization.

President Trump and Republicans will pay a high price for the release of the classified document. Trump spent a good part of his presidential campaign attacking his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, over her use of a private email server and the handling of classified information when she was Secretary of State. This intentional release of U.S. government secrets is exponentially more damaging than anything Clinton did, and will have lasting effects for years, if not longer.

Britain’s intelligence methods could now be at risk, for example.

The New York Times’ Michael Schmidt Thursday night on MSNBC’s “The Last Word” made clear how damaging this move by the president is, as Axios reports:

“This is clearly the most aggressive thing that [Trump] has done, public-relations-wise, to try and brush back the Justice Department,” Schmidt said.

He notes it could be another nail in the coffin for Trump.

“Mueller has been spending a lot of time looking at his conduct in office. It’s become increasingly clear to the public that there is an obstruction of justice [decision] that Mueller is going to have to make.”