President Trump said Friday that Justice Department officials implicated in a Republican-authored memo he declassified today should be "ashamed of themselves" for their alleged role in abusing surveillance powers.
"A lot of people should be ashamed of themselves," Trump said at the White House of the controversial memo, which purports to detail impropriety in the renewal of surveillance warrants on a former Trump campaign adviser.
The White House confirmed on Friday that Trump had declassified the document, which was written by GOP congressional aides to Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.
"I can confirm that the document was declassified in full by the president and sent to the House Intelligence Committee, majority and minority teams, as well as the speaker's office," White House spokesman Raj Shah said.
Shah noted the White House had made no redactions to the document and had left the timing of the document's release up to the intelligence panel.
The memo found that:
* The Steele dossier formed an essential part of the initial and all three renewal FISA applications against Carter Page.
* Andrew McCabe confirmed that no FISA warrant would have been sought from the FISA Court without the Steele dossier information.
* The political origins of the Steele dossier were known to senior DOJ and FBI officials, but excluded from the FISA applications.
* DOJ official Bruce Ohr met with Steele beginning in the summer of 2016 and relayed to DOJ information about Steele's bias. Steele told Ohr that he, Steele, was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected president and was passionate about him not becoming president.