WASHINGTON — In February, House Republicans released a memo that they said showed that federal investigators had obtained wiretaps of a Trump campaign adviser with ties to Russia based on unfounded allegations and bias.

News organizations gained access to a heavily redacted version of the document referenced by the memo last week. It showed that many of the claims in the Republican House Intelligence Committee memo were technically correct. But with greater context, the most explosive allegations fizzled.

San Antonio Rep. Will Hurd, a former CIA undercover operative and member of the House Intelligence Committee, was among the GOP lawmakers who defended the memo and questioned the legal basis for surveillance of Carter Page. At the time, Hurd hadn’t actually seen the 412-page warrant application asking a secret court to authorize the wiretapping.

'Unverified information'

The key point of contention for Hurd and other Republicans involved in drafting and releasing the memo was that information collected by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele was included in the wiretap application. Steele was indirectly paid by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign to collect information on President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.

Hurd told PBS NewsHour on Feb. 2 that the inclusion of any unverified dossier information tainted the wiretap request.

“Whether or not other information was used is immaterial. The former director of the FBI himself said that some of the material that was used was 'salacious and unverified,’” Hurd said, invoking a phrase then-FBI director James Comey had used in congressional testimony.

A Politifact analysis determined that Comey was referring to parts of the allegations in the dossier as "salacious" and noting that the FBI had not independently verified some sensitive aspects of the dossier. It is unclear if the parts Comey was referring to were referenced in the warrant application.

Hurd repeated that the dossier information was unverified in an appearance on ABC News' This Week on Feb. 4.

But legal experts say that it’s common to include some unverified information in a warrant application, noting that surveillance takes place while an investigation is ongoing — not once all the evidence has already been solidified.

"It’s common to have information that standing by itself hasn’t been verified, but together with other information in the application constitutes probable cause," said Robert Litt, a former general counsel to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who has also served in top Justice Department posts.

Information from Steele made up a significant portion of the application, but it is clear from the documents that federal law enforcement had other reasons for concern about Page.

“It appears there is a lot of additional material, almost certainly from other sources. It’s unreasonable to conclude that it was all based on this one guy, Christopher Steele,” said Robert Chesney, an expert in national security law who teaches at the University of Texas School of Law.

Hurd’s office did not respond to requests for comment. He has not commented publicly on the newly released documents, which provide an unprecedented glimpse into the workings of the secret federal court that handles requests for wiretaps under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

'Circular reporting'

In the February PBS interview, Hurd said that a Yahoo News article had been used in the FISA court application to verify claims in the Steele dossier, even though Steele was himself a key source for the article.

That, he said, “is circular reporting,” presented in a misleading way to make it appear there was more corroboration, a claim he repeated on Fox Business Network on March 15.

The FBI told the FISA court that Steele was not a source for the Yahoo article, though that turned out to be incorrect.

But, the newly released documents show that the Yahoo article was cited as background information, not as “confirmation” for the Steele dossier.

Gina Ortiz Jones, Hurd’s Democratic challenger in the November election, criticized him for supporting release of the Republican memo.

“Given [Hurd’s] background, it is concerning that he voted to release the highly misleading memo, and not bring in the information that people need to understand it,” said Jones, a former Air Force intelligence officer.

Funding disclosure

One Republican criticism of the FISA application was that federal law enforcement hid the fact that Democrats had paid for the Steele dossier.

The newly released documents show that the FBI didn’t explicitly tell the court about the partisan funding, but did make the motivations behind the dossier clear. Steele was “likely looking for information that could be used to discredit” the Trump campaign, a passage in a page-long footnote about Steele’s potential biases reads.

Chesney said it is common practice not to name individuals in warrant applications, in order to protect the privacy of those who are not the subject of investigations. Trump is referenced throughout the application as “Candidate #1.”

“It’s clear from the context and description that the source was hired in support of the Clinton campaign to do opposition research on Trump,” Chesney said. “That’s the only reasonable way to read it.”

Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Midland, another member of the Intelligence committee, led the investigation at the time the memo was released, with Chairman Devin Nunes sidelined due to an Ethics Committee investigation.

In public, Conaway was vague in his doubts about the FISA warrant application's validity. He told Politico in January that he decided to send the Republican memo to the White House before the FBI and Justice Department because the law enforcement agencies were accused of misconduct in the memo.

“They’re the ones that have the problem,” Conaway said of the FBI and Justice Department. “I think given the seriousness of this one and the players, this should go to the president first.”

Conaway’s office also declined to comment on the newly released documents.

This is the first time a court has ordered public release of a secret FISA court warrant application. News organizations obtained the documents through Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.

Page has not been charged with a crime. He has acknowledged being an informal adviser to the Kremlin but denied being an agent of a foreign power. Page briefly advised the Trump campaign on foreign policy.

Page had ended his role with the campaign before the warrant application was filed. The warrant application states that U.S. law enforcement suspected that “Page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government.”