Trump accuses Justice Dept, FBI of pro-Democrat bias

Team Udayavani, Feb 3, 2018, 9:59 AM IST

Washington (USA): US President Donald Trump today accused the Justice Department and FBI of a “pro-Democrat bias”, saying their top leadership had “politicised” the investigation against the Republicans.

“The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicised the sacred investigative process in favour of Democrats and against Republicans – something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago.

Rank & File are great people!” Trump tweeted.

Trump’s tweet came as he is set to approve the release of a controversial memo accusing the FBI of abusing its surveillance tools during its probe into alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election, setting up a clash with the intelligence agency.

The memo apparently accuses the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) of abusing a surveillance programme known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) during the 2016 presidential election campaign.

The allegation is that the FBI ran surveillance on a member of Trump’s campaign.

Earlier, a senior administration official told reporters aboard Air Force One that the president was expected to tell Congress that he has no objections to the release of the memo written by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes.

Requesting anonymity, the official said it is a Congressional process and that the decision was made after looking at the memo the last few days and making sure “it doesn’t give away too much in terms of classification”.

“The president is ok with it,” the official said.

“I doubt there will be any redactions. It’s in Congress’ hands after that,” the official said, and refused to answer any further questions.

Trump’s reported decision comes a day after the FBI in an unusual move went public urging against the release of the memo.

Some White House official fear that this might result in the resignation of FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Last year, Trump abruptly fired FBI chief James Comey for his handling of the Russia inquiry.