The FBI investigation of the Trump/Russian connection has been blown out of the water by the release of the secret "memo"... It clearly shows that there was collusion between the Democrats and the FBI in their hidden usage of the fanciful Christopher Steele's dossier, which had been paid for by the DNC.

At this level, the leaky cabinet files in Australia are no more than dog piss on a lamppost... The Democrats and the US media have now a major headache:

By EILEEN SULLIVAN 12:20 PM ET

• House Republicans released a secret memo accusing senior officials at the F.B.I. and Justice Department of bias against President Trump in the early stages of the Russia investigation.

The memo alleges that the FBI misled the FISC to retrieve the warrant in five ways. Firstly, the warrant was based on a memo compiled by Christopher Steele, a former MI-6 agent who conducted opposition research against Trump in 2016. However, the request failed to mention that Steele had conducted this research while on the payroll of Trump's political opponents Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Secondly, the warrant request also relied on an article published on Yahoo News that was used to corroborate Steele's claims — but that very Yahoo article was based on information leaked by Steele himself by his own admission. This was not mentioned in the filing.

Thirdly, Steele allegedly told DOJ Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr in September 2016 that he "was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president." Steele's animus towards Trump was also omitted from the filing.

Fourthly, the contents of the Steele dossier were (and still are) mostly uncorroborated when it was used as the basis for the filing of the FISA warrant. While the FBI admitted this in the filing, banking instead on Steele's proven record as an intelligence agent, they hid Steele's personal and financial baggage that made him a less-than-credible source.

Fifthly, the filing mentions a connection between Page and another Trump adviser, George Papadopolous. However, the FBI has no evidence of that connection, other than both men serving as foreign policy advisers to candidate Trump. Papadopolous pleaded guilty in October 2017 to making false statements to the FBI related to meetings he had with Russian Foreign Ministry officials on the campaign trail.

HIC Chair Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who compiled the memo, said that it demonstrates "serious violations of the public trust" undertaken by the FBI and DOJ. He added that he hoped the document would trigger reforms to the US' judicial system.

The FBI defended themselves from allegations of misconduct. FBI Agents Association President Thomas O'Connor issued a statement of his own where he claimed that FBI agents were dedicated to upholding the law and the American constitution. "The American people should know that they continue to be well-served by the world's preeminent law enforcement agency," O'Connor wrote.

The existence of the memo became public knowledge in mid-January when Nunes and other Republicans called for the memo to be declassified. Conservative media soon joined them, as did many private individuals who called for Congress to #ReleasetheMemo.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/201802021061310092-congress-declassied-memo-r...

Apparently, Steele got paid over US$160,000 by the DNC to write his "dossier"...

it's alledgely good for the alledgeing ABC to alledgdegely tell us about the allledgeded Russian election allllleddgello interference in Trump's alledgweeled victory:

The memo, a flashpoint in Donald Trump's showdown with senior law enforcement officials over alleged Russian election interference, purports to show the investigation of ties between the Trump campaign and Russia was driven by political bias.

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-03/donald-trump-approves-release-of-c...

I read the memo... It's pretty straight forward illustration that the FBI had a bias against trump...

The release of the “Nunes memo” confirms Donald Trump’s willingness to burn down America’s institutions to save his own skin. But unlike in the era of Richard Nixon, the Republican resistance to such tactics is all but dead.

On Friday, the US president approved the release of a classified memo commissioned by the Republican chairman of the House intelligence panel, Devin Nunes, that alleges bias against Trump within the FBI and justice department.

It is surely no coincidence that the extraordinary move – denounced as reckless by the justice department – coincides with the special counsel Robert Mueller reaching at least the end of the beginning of his investigation into alleged collusion between Trump and Russia during the 2016 election.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/02/trump-nunes-memo-republi...

Why would The DumbDumb release this memo? By all account the memo is accurate in the way the FBI used basically fake facts to get the authorisation by the Justice Department to spy on one (or more) of Trump's advisors. There has been NOT A SINGLE PROOF presented so far by ANYONE, about collusion between Trump and the "Russians", nor has there been any PROOFS that the Russians interfered with the US Presidential elections. None, zero, nada. All Mueller is catching is small fry of people who lied to the FBI and got paid under the table, while continuing to sauce up the President with inuendo... That Trump would be fed up with this would be an understatement. The Democrats (and their supporting media) have screwed up. Time for them to give up this charade. Putin is too savvy. Now let's talk about how Mr Murdoch managed to swing it for Trump, then you have a winner... but this would reflect poorly on the Democrats who did not see it coming, while we were on the case a long time ago... 

See also: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/32368

See: 

• By Devlin Barrett, Karoun Demirjian and Philip Rucker

• By Sari Horwitz

If the FBI thinks the Republican memo is incomplete or misleading, then, by all means, the bureau should prepare and release a rebuttal. But under no circumstances did they have the right to try to suppress it. Not only were they wrong on legal grounds to oppose the memo’s release, they were politically stupid for doing so. All they accomplished was to draw more attention to the document and its recitation of the bureau’s failings.

If the FBI knew the Christopher Steele dossier was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee when they submitted it as (in the words of the Nunes memo) “an essential part” of the FISA application for a warrant to spy on an American citizen, and failed to tell the court its provenance, then that is corrupt. This revelation is embarrassing. But in a democracy, that does not allow them to use government classification laws to keep it from the American people.

Read more:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-fbis-scandalous-attempt-to-b...

Here one must say that the WaPo is playing both sides of the fence, while before it was 99 per cent anti-Trump... The anti-Trump article on this affair is:

It is still very possible that President Trump could use the Nunes memo as a pretext to try to quash or constrain special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe. Trump tweeted over the weekend that the memo “totally vindicates” his claim that the investigation is a “witch hunt,” which is an absurd lie in every possible respect, but it shows he’s still mulling a move on Mueller.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/02/05/trumps-late...

I don't think Trump is trying to "stop" Mueller, but to show that there is political bias at the FBI and the DoJ. The DumbDumb sure knows that there is nothing that can be unearthed by Mueller that will prove that Russia interfered with the US Presidential elections because there is none. All Mueller is doing is scratching the dirt like a chicken that has searched the same place over and over, without finding a single grain. Chicken are like that but will gobble stones instead...

WASHINGTON — President Trump accused a top Democratic lawmaker on Monday of being “one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington,” calling Representative Adam Schiff of California “Little Adam Schiff” and accusing him of illegally leaking confidential information from the House Intelligence Committee.

In an early-morning tweet, Mr. Trump ominously said that Mr. Schiff “must be stopped,” though he did not elaborate.

The president’s insult came as Mr. Schiff is expected to call for a vote on Monday afternoon for the Intelligence Committee to release a Democratic rebuttal to the classified memo that the panel’s Republicans released on Friday, which accuses federal law enforcement officials of abusing their powers to spy on a former Trump campaign official.

The Republican memo, written by congressional aides, fell short of providing enough evidence to make that case and was released after Mr. Trump rejected pleas from national security officials to block it.

Read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/us/politics/democratic-memo-adam-schiff-trump.html

Still no proof that Russia influenced the US Presidential elections. Only some partisan argy-bargy about crap of what, who, which said when shit... The Christopher Steele document is a barge-arse pack of lies based on innuendoes, hear-say and fabrication. IT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN USED BY THE FBY to obtain from the DoJ the right to spy on Trump's trollops.