Trump Blames Justice Department and F.B.I. for Conduct He Says Was ‘a Disgrace’

President Trump on Friday intensified his attacks on his own Justice Department and F.B.I. for their handling of the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections, hinting that senior leaders there should face consequences for conduct he called “a disgrace.”

Mr. Trump, who has become increasingly outspoken in his suggestion of wrongdoing by administration officials as the probe has reached deeper inside the White House, made his comments as he announced he had declassified a secret memo prepared by House Republicans that insinuates that the Russia investigation has been tainted by Democratic bias.

“I think it’s terrible,” Mr. Trump said of the actions described by the document, which accuses federal law enforcement officials of abusing their authority when they sought permission to surveil a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page.

“It’s a disgrace what’s happening in our country,” Mr. Trump added. “A lot of people should be ashamed of themselves, and much worse than that.”

The release of the memo raised fresh questions about whether Mr. Trump, who last year fired James. B. Comey, the F.B.I. director overseeing the Russia probe, and then sought to remove Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel named to take it over, might seek next to oust Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who named Mr. Mueller.

The president, who first considered getting rid of Mr. Rosenstein last summer, pointedly refused to say on Friday whether he was more likely to do so now, cocking his head and telling reporters who pressed him on the matter: “You figure that out.”

The memo described Mr. Rosenstein as one of the senior Justice Department officials who approved an application to extend surveillance of Mr. Page, and suggested that those applications deliberately avoided mentioning that they were based in part on information in a dossier paid for by Democrats.

The prospect of Mr. Rosenstein’s ouster set off alarms among Democrats, who said it would be an unacceptable move by the president to thwart an ongoing federal investigation.

“We write to inform you that we would consider such an unwarranted action as an attempt to obstruct justice in the Russia investigation,” Democratic leaders wrote in a letter to Mr. Trump shortly after he made his comments at the White House on Friday morning.

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“Firing Rod Rosenstein, D.O.J. leadership, or Bob Mueller could result in a constitutional crisis of the kind not seen since the Saturday Night Massacre,” they wrote. They were referring to President Nixon’s order at the height of the Watergate scandal to fire Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor. Elliot Richardson, the attorney general, and William Ruckelshaus, the deputy attorney general, resigned rather than carry out the order.

In a morning tweet before the release of the memo, which was compiled by Representative Devin Nunes of California, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Trump said senior officials had corrupted the Russia probe with partisan bias.

“The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans — something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago,” Mr. Trump said on Twitter.

In an afternoon statement, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said the memo “raises serious concerns about the integrity of decisions made at the highest levels of the Department of Justice and the F.B.I. to use the government’s most intrusive surveillance tools against American citizens.”

Ms. Sanders said the decision to release the document was “made with input from the president’s national security team — including law enforcement officials and members of the intelligence community, for whom the president has great respect.”

Senior officials at the Justice Department and F.B.I. had strenuously objected to the memo, arguing that it omitted key facts, a case that Mr. Rosenstein and Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, made to Mr. Trump in person at the White House on Monday. But on Friday, Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, appeared to side with critics.

“Congress has made inquiries concerning an issue of great importance for the country and concerns have been raised about the department’s performance,” Mr. Sessions said in a statement. “I have great confidence in the men and women of this department. But no department is perfect.”

Earlier, during an event at the Justice Department on Friday morning, Mr. Sessions veered off script to praise Mr. Rosenstein, a 27-year veteran of the agency, whom he said represents “the kind of quality and leadership that we want in the department.”

Should Mr. Trump opt to act on the allegations in the memo, Mr. Rosenstein might not be the only senior official affected. Among the other officials mentioned as having approved the applications to extend the surveillance warrant was Dana Boente, who briefly acted as assistant attorney general in the National Security Division before being named as the general counsel at the F.B.I.

Earlier this week, Andrew G. McCabe, the deputy director of the F.B.I., abruptly left after Mr. Wray, the F.B.I. director, confronted him about the Department of Justice’s inspector general’s investigation into the events of 2016.