Republican and Democratic congressmen agree: The memo doesn't 'totally vindicate' Trump
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Republican and Democratic members of Congress on Sunday shows roundly rejected President Trump's Saturday claim that the Nunes memo "totally vindicates" him in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.
GOP lawmakers — like Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) on This Week, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) on Face the Nation, Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) on Fox News Sunday, and Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) on State of the Union — tended to echo the Wall Street Journal editorial board's argument that the memo's revelations are important for surveillance policy but demonstrate nothing about Mueller's investigation.
Democrats likewise rejected the vindication argument, but went one step further. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) emphatically denied Trump's claim on CNN and called for the release of a Democratic response memo, while Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said on ABC the memo actually demonstrates Trump's guilt of collusion with Russia.
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Watch excerpts from Hurd and Durbin below. Bonnie Kristian
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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