Utah Republican Rep. Chris Stewart did not stand a chance on Friday when facing a spitting mad Wolf Blitzer on CNN. The interview followed President Trump's decision to release a controversial memo that alleges his former campaign adviser, Carter Page, was improperly surveilled by the government. The FBI and Justice Department have expressed "grave concerns" about the memo's accuracy.
Blitzer furiously challenged Stewart — a member of the House Intelligence Committee, which used an obscure rule in order to declassify the memo — on the partisanship in of the process. "You voted in favor of releasing the Republican report right away," Blitzer said. "You didn't vote in favor of releasing the Democratic report right away."
Stewart, managing to get a word in edgewise, asked: "Wolf, why are we talking about that instead of talking about the contents of this memo? This is a remarkable — "
That set Blitzer off on a rant. "Because the contents of the memo, congressman, the contents of the memo are being seen as political," he said, adding: "So this has seen by at least a big chunk of the American public, congressman, as being a politicized moment in American history, which you could have avoided by simply releasing both memos at the same time, which has always been the case."
Blitzer later told Stewart, shaking his head, that "you must be very upset that your committee has now been blown apart. Going back many, many decades, I've never seen the House Intelligence Committee so partisan as it has become over the last several months." Watch the uncomfortable debate below. Jeva Lange