The Republican-led House Intelligence Committee has voted to publish a memo reportedly alleging surveillance abuses by the FBI and the DOJ, composed by the panel's chairman, Representative Devin Nunes (R-California).
The declassification process moves on to President Donald Trump, who will have five days to decide whether or not to hold its release.
The Nunes memo alleges abuse of surveillance powers by the US Department of Justice. Democrats, however, claim it is a politically-motivated document to undermine the special counsel investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
The ranking minority member of the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) told reporters that the partisan vote “crossed a deeply regrettable line.”
Schiff had motioned to make public both the Republican-led memo as well as his own party's memo, which the rest of the committee had not seen. That vote failed, and was then followed by a vote to release the GOP's memo.
“The ‘Release The Memo’ crowd apparently doesn't want to release the memo now,” Schiff said.
The Republican members on the panel did approve a motion to release the Democratic memo exclusively to Congress, but not the wider public.
MORE DETAILS TO FOLLOW