(Bloomberg) -- U.S. President Donald Trump was briefed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on a Democratic memo countering Republican claims of FBI and Justice Department bias in the Russia probe, the White House chief of staff said Tuesday.
John Kelly, the chief of staff, said that Rosenstein had a “great conversation” with Trump about the memo drafted by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee.
Rosenstein, who has been criticized by some Republicans for his oversight of the Russia investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, “helped the president understand the differences between the first memo, second memo,” Kelly told reporters at the Capitol as he left an unrelated meeting.
Kelly said that the White House had received the memo late Monday night and that he had set a Thursday deadline for the review to be completed.
Trump, who signed off last week on the disclosure of the Republican memo, will have to decide whether to release the memo, declassify it with redactions or block it.
“This is not as clean a memo as the first one,” Kelly said.
“Where the first one was very clean relative to sources and methods, my initial cut is this one is a lot less clean,” Kelly said, adding that it's also “more lengthy.”
The Intelligence Committee voted unanimously Monday to make the Democrats' memo public. The panel was required to submit both documents to the White House for review because they are based on classified information.
Republicans ‘Hammered'
After the panel's closed-door meeting on Monday, Representative Adam Schiff, the committee's top Democrat, told reporters that Republicans on the committee had agreed to release the Democratic memo because they got “hammered” last weekend for releasing their own version while blocking the Democratic one.
"It's time for this majority to make the decision to be serious investigators," he said.
Separately, former White House strategist Steve Bannon skipped a closed-door interview with the committee on Tuesday despite being subpoenaed to appear. Lawmakers said the session was delayed a week for continued negotiations on the terms of his appearance.
Related story: Bannon Interview With House Panel Is Delayed
Schiff said Tuesday that “the White House continues to prohibit Mr. Bannon from testifying to the committee beyond a set of fourteen yes-or-no questions the White House had pre-approved.” “This is unacceptable, and the committee remains united on this matter,” he said.
The Republican memo charged that FBI and Justice Department officials conducting the Russia probe didn't tell a secret court that a dossier they cited to get a surveillance warrant on a low-level Trump adviser was paid for by Trump rival Hillary Clinton and Democrats.
Read more: Fact-Checking the Disputed Republican Memo on Russia Probe
Schiff, of California, and other Democrats said the GOP's goal was to undermine -- and perhaps end -- Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, whether anyone close to Trump colluded in it and whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice.
Schiff has said the secret court was “aware that there was a political motivation behind” the funding of the dossier produced by former British spy Christopher Steele. He has said the Democratic counter-memo is based on the same underlying classified material the Republicans used for their version but points out its errors and omissions.
The FBI and Justice Department are reviewing the Democratic memorandum for classified information, Schiff said. “We're doing the responsible thing,” he added, “and asking the Department of Justice to take any actions they think are necessary.”
Trump tweeted over the weekend that although the Republican memo “totally vindicates" him, the “Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on.” Even so, Republican members of the Intelligence Committee said on Sunday morning talk shows that Mueller's investigation should proceed without interference.
Unless the president notifies Congress by the end of five days that the Democratic memo's disclosure presents a threat to the national interest, the House committee could choose to release the information on its own.
Closed-Door Vote
Even if the White House refused to allow its release, the House committee could seek a rare closed-door vote of all House members to override the president and release it.
According to lawmakers who have read the Democratic memo, it's about 11 pages long and has annotations and explanatory notes.
The Senate's top Democrat, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, issued a statement calling on Trump to move quickly to release the memo and “allow the public to make their own judgment on the facts of the case.” There should be “no question” that it can be released because it's based on the same underlying documents as the GOP memo, he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net, Jennifer Jacobs in Washington at jjacobs68@bloomberg.net, Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Mike Dorning, Larry Liebert
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