John Kelly says Democratic memo is 'a lot less clean' and 'lengthier' than Nunes memo

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told reporters on Tuesday that the White House is reviewing the memo Democrats wrote as a rebuttal to the four-page document compiled by staffers of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), and he's "not leaning toward" it being released as is.

The controversial GOP memo was made public last week, unredacted, purporting to show that federal authorities mishandled the way they obtained a warrant to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Democrats called the Nunes memo one-sided and said it cherry-picked information, and the Justice Department and FBI warned against releasing it, citing concerns over having intelligence made public. The House Intelligence Committee voted on Monday evening to release the Democratic memo, and Kelly said the FBI and Justice Department have until Thursday to give Trump their recommendations on how to handle the document. Trump has four days to decide if he will release the memo and if he will redact any parts of it.

"This is a different memo than the first one, it's lengthier, well it's different, so not learning toward it," Kelly told reporters. "It will be done in a responsible way. But again, where the first one was very clean relative to sources and methods, my initial cut is this one is a lot less clean." One day after Republicans approved the Nunes memo for release, Kelly said it would be released "really quick."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up