President Trump has until Friday to decide whether to release a secret Democratic rebuttal to the Nunes memo. Last week, the President released a previously-classified document authored by the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes. It alleged the FBI misused its surveillance authority.
During his weekly conference call with reporters on Wednesday, Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown called the Republican memo “distraction politics” and says he hopes attacks on law enforcement will end.
“Because when they attack the FBI, they attack the Cleveland city police. And they attack the police in Zanesville. They attack the state patrol when they’re attacking law enforcement like this.”
Senator Brown says the Democratic memo should not be made public if the FBI opposes its release. Before the Nunes memo was released, the FBI issued a statement saying it had “grave concerns” about its accuracy. The Democrats gave the FBI a copy of their memo but the agency has not yet commented.
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The president's call for a parade
Also this week, Trump asked the Defense Department to look into staging a military parade in Washington. But Brown says military parades are for marking victories like the end of World War II.
“I’m not exactly sure if this is just for the president’s gratification, that he is perhaps ordering as Commander in Chief his right to do that, ordering this. But I just don’t know if it makes sense to spend tens of millions of dollars for that, frankly.”
Brown says passing a budget bill that funds the Department of Defense is the way to celebrate the armed forces. A spokesperson for Republican Senator Rob Portman says they don’t have information on the President’s proposal for staging a military parade but the senator supports efforts to thank the military.
