In releasing the document, Trump and House Republicans have defied fierce resistance from the FBI. Director Christopher Wray had earlier taken the highly unusual step of publicly calling for the memo to be withheld, saying his institution has “grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.” Nunes, who hasn’t actually seen the intelligence the memo is based on, says Wray’s statement is “spurious.” The FBI agents association issued a statement implying that the memo was “partisan politics.”

Democrats who have seen the underlying intelligence have lambasted the memo. The vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Mark Warner said it shows an “astonishing disregard for the truth” and that it is “dangerous” to national security. Schiff said it “mischaracterizes” information and points out that Nunes refused to say whether his staffers coordinated with the White House when drafting the memo.

Nunes has insisted that it is neither cherry-picked nor partisan, and House speaker Paul Ryan underlined that the memo is not part of a battle against law enforcement. However, Trump seemed to undermine that argument in an early morning tweet, which pits the narrative against the FBI and law enforcement:

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