The Controversial Nunes Memo
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- Farmington High School
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On February 2nd, the Republican controlled House Intelligence Committee released the controversial Nunes Memo. The memo contains serious allegations against the FBI and has potential to end the Russia-Mueller Probe.
In July 2016, the FBI launched an investigation into an alleged collusion between Donald Trump and Russia. The right and left both debated on whether the investigation had any meat to it. According to the Nunes Memo, the FBI launched this investigation based on the Steele Dossier.
Christopher Steele, the author of the Steele Dossier, was hired by Fusion GPS to investigate Trump's relations with Russia. Fusion GPS was hired by Perkins Coie, a law firm that represented the Clinton Campaign in April 2016.
The information used that was obtained by Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, was given to the FBI which later used the same information to obtain a warrant to initiate the Mueller Probe. The principal Fruit of the Poisonous Tree might apply here.
Fruit of the Poisonous Tree is a legal term in which if the initial source was obtained unconstitutionally, then the evidence that comes from that source cannot be used to incriminate. This term might be able to be applied to the FBI's investigation into Presidents Trump's alleged collusion with the Russian government.
When the memo was released, the DNC and FBI condemned Trump's act to release it and accused Nunes of editing the memo. Rep. Adam B Schiff (D-Calif.) sent a letter to Chairman Nunes, accusing him of ¨deliberately misleading¨ the committee. Schiff asked Nunes to withdraw the version of the memo he sent to the White House.
While a representative from the Republican majority of the committee argued that the changes to the memo were ¨minor edits,¨ such as grammatical changes and ¨two changes were requested by the FBI and by the minority themselves¨.
In conclusion, this memo is up in the air depending on which government officials you believe in. The left is saying the memo was edited and misled the committee and public, while the right defensively says that the democratic minority of the committee requested changes to the memo. Hopefully in the future we can discover what happened and what the original memo contained in order to discover who was being truthful in this complicated situation.