Trump blocks release of Democrat rebuttal memo, citing national security

Rob told you a few days ago of talk that the memo was basically a trap, loaded up with classified information that would make it impossible for Trump to approve its release, thus setting up a scenario in which they could run around screaming, "What is he hiding?" Is that exactly how it played out? Or was Trump going to block it no matter what because he knew the media would ascribe unquestioned credibility to President Logan's manifesto regardless of how much utter garbage it might actually be? We won't know until we can see it, and at the moment at least, we can't:

The Republican president’s decision -- the latest controversy relating to an investigation that has hung over his year in office -- infuriated Democrats. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said, “Millions of Americans are asking one simple question: what is he hiding?” White House Counsel Don McGahn said the Justice Department had identified portions of the 10-page memo written by Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee that “would create especially significant concerns for the national security and law enforcement interests” of the country. The White House also released a letter from the FBI director and the department’s No. 2 official voicing concern about its release in relation to protecting U.S. intelligence sources and methods. A week earlier, Trump had overruled similar objections from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department about releasing the memo written by the same committee’s Republican members that took aim at senior law enforcement officials. ”The president’s double standard when it comes to transparency is appalling, Schumer said.

---

If the Democrats set this up as a rope-a-dope, they couldn't have done it any more skillfully. Wray and Rosenstein voiced the exact same objections to the Nunes memo and of course Trump approved its release anyway. Now suddenly he cares about the concerns of the FBI and the Justice Department? This is set up for people to yelp, "Double standard!" Except . . . when we actually saw the Nunes memo, it was devoid of anything that would present a problem for national security. It compromised no sources or methods. It gave away no sensitive national security information. The only thing it did was embarrass the FBI while revealing what a huckster Christopher Steele was. It was so innocuous that the political class tried to pretend it was a big nothingburger until the Graham-Grassley criminal referral of Steele came out and corroborated just about all the claims Nunes made in the memo. So what if the Democrats really did insert poison pills into their memo in the form of classified information, prompting the same exact objections from the DOJ and the FBI, but this time in completely legitimate fashion? It would give Trump no choice but to block it, but it sure would look to the public like Trump had something to hide and was applying a double standard. If you're a political person, you'd probably say, "Well played, Democrats." If you're a serious person, you've had about enough of the never-ending attempt to keep the "Russia/collusion" narrative alive when all evidence suggests it's a complete fraud, and the country really has more legitimate things to deal with.