Senator Collins’ Statement on Release of House Intelligence Committee Memo

Washington, D.C.—U.S. Senator Susan Collins, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued this statement following the release of the majority staff memo by the House Intelligence Committee today:

“Prior to the release of this memo by the House Intelligence Committee, the Justice Department and the FBI raised serious and genuine concerns about the implications for our national security and stated that the memo omits key facts that ‘fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.’  It does not appear that any redactions or revisions were made to satisfy these legitimate concerns.

“Oversight of the intelligence community, the FISA process, and this investigation are far too important to be tarnished by partisanship.  When the Senate Intelligence Committee released a controversial report some years ago, we spent months meeting with the intelligence community to redact sensitive information.  We also simultaneously voted on a bipartisan basis to release a rebuttal from the CIA and minority views, which were Republican views at that time.  This model of bipartisanship and careful vetting would have been a far better way to proceed.”