Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., clashed with CNN as the cable news network pressed the House Intelligence Committee chairman to answer for a memo his panel released earlier this year on alleged surveillance abuse.

"He attacked CNN," said senior congressional correspondent Manu Raju said Monday evening after tailing Nunes on Capitol Hill and failing to get the response he was seeking about whether he still stood by the memo.

"Do you really think I'm going to talk to the leading Democratic Party propaganda?" was Nunes' response, according to a clip aired on CNN.





Raju was asking the congressman to comment on the Justice Department's weekend release of more than 400 pages of highly redacted, top-secret documents related to the 2016 application for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant taken out on one-time Trump campaign aide Carter Page, in addition to three renewal applications.

Following the release of the FISA applications, journalists and politicos have offered divergent takes about whether they adds credence or detracts from the HPSCI majority's memo, released in February, which was based on the intelligence. That memo found that the dossier compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele formed an essential part of the initial and all three renewal FISA applications against Page and that the research's Democratic financial supporters, the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign, were omitted from the FISA applications.

At the time, Nunes said the FISA court was misled and berated the media for the negative coverage of the memo.

With the release of the highly redacted FISA applications, Nunes has indeed stuck by his memo — and has seen support from conservative media.

However, Democrats and other members of the media have declared Nunes' memo a bust.

The documents "are not kind to Congressman Devin Nunes' claims" that the FBI was biased, said CNN's Anderson Cooper on his show Monday evening, after noting Nunes has repeatedly refused to appear for an interview. He added that the documents show the FBI had good reason to believe Page was subject to targeted recruitment by the Kremlin and that four Republican-appointed judges agreed.

Asked by Cooper — after showing a clip of his tense engagement with Nunes at the Capitol — if all the Republican did was accuse CNN being Democratic propaganda, Raju replied, "That's pretty much it."

In a tweet Tuesday in response to a shortened clip of the exchange, Nunes excoriated CNN for not mentioning a quote provided by his office: "CNN’s slavish adherence to the Democrats’ comical talking points is an amazing sight to behold.”

"Guess what? They refused to run the statement," Nunes added. "This is another great example of 'Fake and fraudulent news.'"



Also when asked my office gave them this quote...”CNN’s slavish adherence to the Democrats’ comical talking points is an amazing sight to behold.”.....Guess what? They refused to run the statement...This is another great example of “Fake and fraudulent news” https://t.co/ML7z0etx9T — Devin Nunes (@DevinNunes) July 24, 2018

Raju did mention in brief, while s peaking with CNN's Wolf Blitzer during the afternoon Monday, that Nunes' office "attacked" the question and CNN instead of focusing on the "apparent contradictions" about which they were asked.

Nunes, who in the past couple days has called for all redactions to be eliminated, accused "certain members of the press" of working for the Democratic Party during a Fox News interview Monday evening.

He also stressed that Page, who has not been charged with any crimes and denies having worked as a Russian agent, "had his rights abused" and condemned federal officials for using a "word puzzle" to obfuscate certain facts in their FISA warrant applications.