Mark Meadows pushed hard for release of memo on Russia-Trump investigation

Eleventh District U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-Buncombe, has been one of the leading cheerleaders for releasing a memo he says shows inappropriate actions by the FBI and Department of Justice.

And, according to one report, Meadows first got President Donald Trump interested in the issue last month.

The other North Carolina politician heavily involved in the issue, U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, has been virtually silent on the so-called Nunes memo.

The memo, named for the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has been the subject of partisan wrangling in Washington for at least two weeks.

Republicans say it calls into question the validity of an investigation into connections between Trump and Russia. Democrats say it is an inaccurate and misleading attempt to derail the investigation, omits key information and could expose intelligence gathering methods or sources that should be kept secret.

MORE: Republicans release memo alleging spying abuses by FBI, DOJ against Trump campaign aides

It was compiled by staff of the House Intelligence Committee and questions the way the FBI got a court's permission to conduct surveillance on a Trump campaign operative, Carter Page, with ties to Russia. The FBI had information that Russia was attempting to recruit Page as an agent, The New York Times reported in April.

The memo concerns whether the FBI adequately explained the origins of a dossier on ties between Trump and Russia that may have been used to get a search warrant. The dossier was first commissioned by a conservative website and was later funded by Democrats, including the campaign of Hillary Clinton.

After its release, Meadows tweeted that, "The FBI took an unverified political dossier, paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, and they used it as a central piece in their request to get a warrant for spying on American citizens and political opponents in the Trump campaign."

He called officials' actions "completely unacceptable."

Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee said in a statement that the memo ignores the fact that the dossier did not spark the investigation of Russia-Trump ties and that the probe "would persist on the basis of wholly independent evidence."

It says it is "not accurate" to say that the FBI did not explain to a judge the political motivations of those funding the dossier.

Meadows said on the House floor Jan. 18 that he was "shocked to read exactly what has taken place. I would think that it would never happen in a country that loves freedom and democracy like this country."

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Meadows and U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, got Trump interested in the issue in a telephone call the same day focused primarily on avoiding a government shutdown.

Trump closely watched television coverage of the issue after that and talked to friends and advisers about it, the Post said, then decided it should be released before he had read it.

The Post quoted Meadows as saying he and Jordan were among several people speaking to Trump about the memo.

The memo was released Friday after Trump declined to keep it confidential despite opposition from law enforcement officials. The FBI said in an unusual statement Wednesday that "we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy."

In a series of tweets just before midnight Thursday, Meadows pushed again for public release.

"Was the Obama (Department of Justice) weaponized to spy on the Trump campaign?" one Meadows tweet asks.

"The DOJ and FBI spying on American citizens should automatically be met with MAJOR skepticism," he wrote.

"I know it can be easy to disregard any inquiry like this as party politics. I understand that," Meadows wrote. "But this is so far above politics, folks. Lady Justice wears a blindfold. Her scale is supposed to be balanced."

Burr's committee has also been looking into contacts and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Burr has said little publicly about the investigation and his office did not respond to a request for comment about the memo from the Citizen Times Friday.

The Associated Press quoted a Burr spokesman as saying he would have no comment.

The third-ranking Senate Republican, John Thune of South Dakota, told reporters Thursday that Burr had not yet seen the memo and should be allowed to before it is released. Thune urged caution on the question of whether it should be publicly released, saying that could compromise national security intelligence sources or intelligence.

“It would be helpful” for Burr to read it, Thune said. “I think that Senator Burr would like to see it and hasn’t been able to yet.”