On Saturday, the White House officially allowed the rebuttal memo drafted by House Democrats on the Intelligence Committee to be released. The memo was meant to rebuke the one released by their Republican counterparts a few weeks ago, but the FBI requested that certain information be redacted because it exposed sources and methods. In response to the release, ABC’s Good Morning America touted the memo on Sunday but claimed the White House was responsible for the redactions and suggested they were hiding something.

The latest memo was written up by Congressman Adam Schiff (Calif.) and was meant to be a “point by point rebuttal of another Republican memo released weeks ago. Subject line, ‘correcting the record, the Russia investigations,’” hyped White House Correspondent David Wright at the start of his report. And with great snarkiness, he added: “As it says there on the bottom, top secret, until now. When the Republicans finally got around to declassifying it.”

Wright failed to mention that the Republicans unanimously voted to release the Democratic memo weeks ago and that the holdup was the FBI, just as he did with explaining who wanted the redactions.

After claiming “the Schiff memo insists ‘DOJ provided additional information obtained by multiple independent sources’ that corroborated [British spy Michael] Steele's reporting,” he suggested that the White House was the one trying to hide something. “But whatever that evidence might have been, is now blacked out. Censored by the Trump White House, which insists releasing the details would compromise national security,” he declared with skepticism.

“This one document has been at the center of a political storm here in Washington. And while it may not prove Russian meddling in American politics,” Wright admitted. “It does prove that the Russia issue has poisoned American politics.” He seemed almost amused by the tension the Russian investigation had brought to the committee, quipping:

To say there's a partisan divide over the House Intelligence Committee would be an understatement. We understand that things are so bad there is even talk over in the committee’s basement offices on Capitol Hill of building a physical barrier between Democratic and Republican staff members. Kind of another version of Trump's wall.

There were key details in the story that explained why the Democratic memo had such a delayed release, but Wright and ABC had no interest in providing an accurate story. Clearly, for them, it was more about smearing Republicans and the White House.

The relevant portions of the transcript are below, click expand to read: