WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. House Intelligence Committee voted unanimously Monday to release a Democrat-drafted secret memo countering a previous one by Republicans about alleged surveillance abuse by the FBI and Justice Department in their Russia probe.
President Donald Trump has five days to decide whether to block the new memo or not.
"It is our expectation that our memo will be going to the White House tonight, so as of tonight, that five-day clock is ticking," the committee's top Democrat, Adam Schiff, said on Monday.
The Democrat memo is expected to lay out a point-by-point rebuttal of the assertions in the earlier memo issued Friday by the Republican-controlled committee following Trump's authorization, according to a report on The Hill website.
If Trump blocks the Democrat document's release, the full House can override him and force the publication of the memo, the report said. ' "The administration stands ready to work with Congress to accommodate oversight requests consistent with applicable standards, including the need to protect intelligence sources and methods," White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders said of the Democrat memo.
According to the Republican-drafted memo, a number of then top U.S. law enforcement leaders abused their power by inappropriately obtaining a surveillance warrant on Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump presidential campaign until September 2016.
Some of the big names identified in the memo include James Comey, then director of the FBI, his deputy Andrew McCabe, then associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr, as well as current Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who assigned Special Counsel Robert Mueller last year to take charge of a probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 elections.
Trump tweeted on the weekend that it "totally vindicates" him in the ongoing probe into Russian election interference.
On Sunday, Schiff warned that Trump is trying to turn the Justice Department into a "personal political tool."
The already declassified Republican memo was drafted by Devin Nunes, Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He served on the Trump transition team and is widely seen as Trump's close ally.
Democrat lawmakers have called the memo misleading and part of an effort to undermine Mueller's ongoing probe.
