President Donald Trump blasted a redacted version of the Democratic memo that seeks to undercut earlier Republican claims of FBI surveillance abuses after it was released Saturday.

Democrats on the U.S. House Intelligence Committee defended official investigations into claims of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election in the new memo.

The 10-page, partially-redacted document sharply criticized a previously released Republican memo as a 'transparent effort to undermine' investigations by the FBI, Justice Department and Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Trump quickly responded to the new memo, tweeting: 'The Democrat memo response on government surveillance abuses is a total political and legal BUST. Just confirms all of the terrible things that were done. SO ILLEGAL!'

'FBI did not disclose who the clients were - the Clinton Campaign and the DNC. Wow!,' he continued. 'This whole Witch Hunt is an illegal disgrace...and Obama did nothing about Russia!'

The minority's new memo defends the FBI's applications to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court warrants to conduct temporary surveillance of Carter Page, a one-time advisor to the Trump campaign, saying that British former spy Christopher Steele's 'dirty dossier' was only part of the information used in the applications.

Among the new Democrat memo's key assertions are that:

FBI probe into Page's Russia ties began seven weeks before it saw Steele dossier

Steele dossier was not the main source of intelligence used in FISA application

The applications to wiretap Page came after he had left the Trump campaign

FBI admitted to FISA court the dossier was meant to 'discredit' Trump campaign

FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page did not sign the wiretap applications

Four Republican-appointed judges approved the spying application and renewal

FBI never paid Steele for the dossier, though it had considered such payment

Page lied under oath, though the specific subject of his statement is redacted

Scroll down for full memo

President Trump agreed Saturday to release a redacted version of the Democratic memo that seeks to undercut Republican claims of FBI surveillance abuses

U.S. House Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff (pictured) says the FBI had reason to surveil Trump's campaign adviser Carter Page as he was assessed to be an agent of the Russian government before the FBI even received the infamous Steele dossier

Trump also blasted Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff, the architect of the new memo, as a 'total phony'. Schiff responded on Twitter, writing: 'Wait a minute, Mr. President. Am I a phony, or sleazy, a monster or little? Surely you know the key to a good playground nickname is consistency. I thought you were supposed to be good at this.'

For the first time, the new memo publicly quotes from the original classified FISA court application of October 22, in which the FBI sought permission to spy on Page.

The warrant application does not name any Americans except for Page, as is customary in such documents. But it does reveal that the FBI told the court its suspicion that the Steele dossier was politically tainted.

'The FBI speculates that the identified US person [Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS, who hired Steele] was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1's [Trump] campaign,' the warrant application reads.

That contradicts the main allegation in the prior GOP memo, that the FBI and Justice Department did not tell the court about Steele's anti-Trump bias or that his work was funded in part by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

Further, the new memo claims the warrant applications 'cited multiple sources to support the case for surveilling Page - but made only narrow use of information from Steele's sources.'

Many of the memo's redacted portions appear to refer to these additional sources and information used in the warrant applications, though this is impossible to verify.

The new memo also states that the warrant applications 'did not otherwise rely on Steel's reporting, including any "salacious" allegations about Trump, and the FBI never paid Steele for this reporting.'

The new Democrat memo also asserts that FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page (no relation to Carter), whose anti-Trump text messages were revealed after they were removed from the Mueller probe, did not sign the affidavits used to obtain the surveillance warrants.

Also newly revealed in the memo is information about the four FISA court judges who approved the wiretap application and subsequent renewals. All were appointed by Republican presidents: two by George W. Bush, and one each by George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.

The key Republican memo points confirmed in the new memo are that the Steele dossier, at least in part, was used in FISA applications, as was a Yahoo News article that was allegedly based on information leaked by Steele.

Curiously, the Democrat memo states that the Yahoo article was only included in the application to 'inform the Court of Page's public denial of his suspected meetings in Moscow.' In fact, the article includes no such denial, instead reporting that Page declined repeated requests to comment.

Former MI6 agent Christopher Steele (left) was hired by the Clinton campaign to compile the dossier that alleged former Trump advisor Carter Page (right) had suspect ties to Russians

The US House Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, gave insight into why releasing the highly anticipated memo was crucial, and that he preferred it was released sooner than Saturday.

'After reviewing the memorandum drafted by committee Republicans that was made public at the beginning of this month, the FBI rightly expressed its 'grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy,' Schiff wrote in a press release on the committee's website.

He went into a point by point explanation on what the Republican memo omitted that was cause for concern.

'The FBI supplied information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that Russia might be colluding with Trump campaign associates. DOJ provided the Court with a comprehensive explanation of Russia's election interference including evidence that Russia courted another Trump foreign policy advisor, George Papadopoulos, and that Russian agents previewed their dissemination of information damaging to Hillary Clinton. Russian assistance would, as we would learn in the Papadopoulos plea, take the form of the anonymous disclosure of thousands of Hillary Clinton and DNC emails.'

Moreover, the FBI was concerned about Trump's campaign advisor Page's ties to Russia.

'The FBI had ample reason to believe that Carter Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power based on his history, including the fact that he had previously been a target of Russian recruitment, his travel to Russia, and other information. The renewals of the FISA were also appropriate and based on new information obtained by law enforcement.'

'The document that we are releasing today is the product of a good faith negotiation between the Minority and the FBI and DOJ.'

'But it is unfortunate that the weekend release of the Democratic memo by the White House was delayed beyond what was necessary and to the advantage of those seeking to mislead the American public.'

'Now that the public has a clearer understanding of the early phases of the investigation, it is time for our committee to return to the core investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, the role US persons played in that interference and what we need to do to protect the country going forward,' Schiff's release concluded.

The White House, which had initially blocked the release of the Democratic memo, citing its inclusion of sensitive information, again took aim at the now-redacted text.

Deputy spokesman Raj Shah termed it a 'political-driven document' that is 'loaded with uncorroborated allegations' and 'fails to answer serious concerns raised' in the Republican memo.

Devin Nunes, the architect of the Republican memo, also criticized the Democratic rebuttal.

'What you're not gonna see is anything that actually rejects what was in our memo,' which aimed to show 'that FISA abuse had occurred,' Nunes said at an annual Republican conference.

Democrats 'are advocating that it's OK for the FBI and DOJ to use political dirt paid for by one campaign and use it against the other campaign,' he said.

'In the United States of America, that is unacceptable.'

US intelligence has concluded that Russia sought to influence the 2016 election that brought Trump to office, but the president has repeatedly denied any 'collusion' between his campaign and Moscow.