Republicans are optimistic about releasing the counter memo issued by the Democratic Party after it has gone through the vetting procedures to ensure it does not endanger national security. According to Ashlee Strong, a spokesperson for Ryan said on Friday that, “If it is scrubbed to ensure it does not reveal sources and methods of our intelligence gathering, the speaker supports the release of the Democrats’ memo.”
In an interview with Fox News, Nunes said that the committee would vote to determine if the Democratic Party’s memo needs to be released. He further stated that it is difficult to identify the exact date for that to happen; however, he added that the document will be reviewed by the committee members before beginning the voting process. Nunes, who was in charge of the GOP memo release said, “I’ve only read through it once. We’re going to have to go through it and scrub it again.” He further added that “These guys tell so many lies you can’t keep track of them,” Nunes said, referring to Intelligence Committee Democrats. “If the court did know that, I think the judge would have to be considered very suspect, but I don’t think that happened at all.”
Some members of the Republican committee along with Speaker Paul Ryan expressed that they are open to release the rebuttal memo by Democratic Party publicly. However, most of the committee members are steadfast that the rebuttal memo by Democratic Party would need to be properly vetted to make sure it does not contain sensitive information that can endanger the intelligence gathering or national security.
White House has also expressed its optimism towards declassifying the rebuttal memo if it goes through the same inspection process, as subjected to the Republican memo. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House Secretary, said in reference to the Democratic memo that, “The administration stands ready to work with Congress to accommodate oversight requests consistent with applicable standards, including the need to protect intelligence sources and methods.”
According to Shah, “We would be happy to review it once it’s sent to us and once it goes through the House Intelligence Committee and the House of Representatives process.” He further added that “As long as it doesn’t have direct revelations of existing, ongoing intelligence, which I think we can take out, but of course I would support that.”
