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Comment by wgj | Hacker News Reader

Steele was never an FBI officer.

In this case, he was a witness. The FBI selectively disclosed the available information they had from him and about him to the FISC in a way to bias the court's decision.

How would you like the FBI to make a similar case about you or your favorite politician to the FISC? The FBI is there to protect our rights, not infringe on them.

Many of the FBI officials who had approval authority had at least an apparent conflict of interest and should have recused.

If sources and informants had to meet the same standard as FBI officers, we wouldn't have very many sources or informants. There's an expectation that people outside law enforcement aren't going to meet the standards of law enforcement.

That said, I'm not an expert in these matters, and I'm looking forward to the rebuttal memo to see what the other viewpoint is.

> I'm looking forward to the rebuttal memo to see what the other viewpoint is.

In the absence of the actual rebuttal memo, a kind of preview that doesn't require declassifying anything for release is available:

https://thinkprogress.org/3-lies-in-the-nunes-memo-4c6498aad...

> That said, I'm not an expert in these matters, and I'm looking forward to the rebuttal memo to see what the other viewpoint is.

The Republicans have prohibited the release of the minority memo.

https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/news/documentsingle...

That's disingenuous. They haven't prevented the eventual release of it. What they've prevented is circumventing the rules of the oversight committee which have a series of events (committee vote, wider vote, review, etc) prior to a public release.

Rep Adam Schiff not doing his homework soon enough for it to be released in tandem with the Republican memo is his fault. They're not stopping it, they're just requiring he follow the same rules.

How ingenuous of you is it not to suggest that the Republican memo wait so that both can be released at the same time. Also, its true that there are Republicans on the committee that don't want to see the Dem's memo released at all!

> How ingenuous of you is it not to suggest that the Republican memo wait so that both can be released at the same time.

There's no rule that all memos on a subject need be released at the same time. Each is released once it completes the release process. If there's a "rebuttal memo" from the Republicans upon the contents of the Democrat's memo, should we wait for that as well? How about the rebuttal to the rebuttal?

The only requirement is that the vote and review process is followed.

> Also, its true that there are Republicans on the committee that don't want to see the Dem's memo released at all!

The comment to which I responded claimed that "Republicans have prohibited the release of the minority memo" which is false.

If you're going to make a claim that some Republicans are preventing the Democrat's memo from being released then feel free to name the names involved. My understanding is that it's entirely a process issue and Rep Schiff is a tool for claiming otherwise.

Selective disclosure? You mean that they should have also mentioned that he walked little old ladies across the street, so as to more accurately portray his character? All that's required to establish guilt is to the disclose the facts surrounding the alleged illegal activity. As long as these statements are truly facts, then guilt has been established. Additional statements beyond that don't matter much.

An FBI official's political beliefs do not constitute a conflict of interest. If that were true, why should the Special Counsel (Mueller) be allowed to be a Republican? Are we supposed to be erring on the side of the accused (Trump)?

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