Article snippet: House Intelligence Committee Democrats on Saturday released their memo defending the Justice Department (DOJ) and FBI against allegations of surveillance abuses made in a memo by committee Republicans. The 10-page Democratic memo charges that the Republican memo was wrong to assert that the FBI's investigation of Russian election meddling resulted from the creation of the so-called Steele dossier — an unverified private intelligence document detailing Trump's ties to Russia. The Democratic memo claims that the FBI had been investigating Trump associates for seven weeks before the dossier, authored by former British spy Christopher Steele, was handed over to them. This, according to the memo, means that the FBI did not rely on the dossier to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page. The GOP memo — which was assembled by House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. MORE (R-Calif.) and his staff — depicted a Justice Department fractured by bias against Trump while he was a candidate, but did not specify any particular criminal statutes that may have been violated. According to the GOP document, information from the Steele dossier was "essential" to the acquisition of surveillance warrants on Trump campaign aide Carter Page. It claims that then-Deputy FBI Director MORE told the committee in December that without the information from the Steele dossier, no surveillance warrant for Page w... Link to the full article to read more