FBI expresses 'grave concerns' over Republican memo's accuracy

The FBI said on Wednesday it had “grave concerns” about the accuracy of a top-secret House Intelligence Committee memo alleging anti-Trump bias within the Justice Department, challenging President Donald Trump’s pledge to release it.

But a few hours after the rare public rebuke by the top U.S. law enforcement agency, a Trump administration official said the memo was likely to be released on Thursday.

“The FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it,” the FBI said in a statement. “As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

The FBI declined to say if Director Christopher Wray, who viewed the memo during the weekend, approved the statement. Trump named Wray to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation after firing Director James Comey last May.

The memo has become a lightning rod in a partisan fight over investigations into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and possible collusion by Trump’s campaign, which Russia and Trump have both denied.

Justice Department officials have also said releasing the memo could jeopardize classified information.

Representative Devin Nunes, the intelligence committee’s Republican chairman who commissioned the document, dismissed the FBI and Justice Department objections to its release as “spurious” in a statement on Wednesday.