As if he needed more bad news...

[The Barbarian]

South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy said the recently released, controversial GOP memo alleging FBI abuses of its surveillance authority does not have "any impact on the Russia probe," and even without the Steele dossier, there would be a Russia investigation.
"There is a Russia investigation without a dossier," Gowdy said in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation," days after he announced his decision not to seek re-election.
President Donald Trump authorized the release of the memo from the House Intelligence Committee on Friday, and has since claimed it "totally vindicates" him in the ongoing investigation around allegations of possible coordination between his associates and Russia to influence the 2016 election.
Gowdy, however, said he believes the memo does not affect the Russia investigation and has no connection to key storylines about the matter.

"To the extent the memo deals with the dossier and the FISA process, the dossier has nothing to do with the meeting at Trump Tower," Gowdy said. "The dossier has nothing to do with an email sent by Cambridge Analytica. The dossier really has nothing to do with George Papadopoulos' meeting in Great Britain. It also doesn't have anything to do with obstruction of justice."
...
n a separate CNN interview on the same program, Republican Rep. Brad Wenstrup of Ohio signaled agreement with Gowdy that the memo is a "separate issue" from vindicating Trump in the Russia probe.
"It's more looking within the agencies, something we have oversight over," said Wenstrup, who, like Gowdy, is a member of the House Intelligence Committee and supported the release of the memo.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/04/politics/trey-gowdy-memo/index.html

As the ship starts to list, more and more republicans are distancing themselves from Trump and his claims that the Nunes story "vindicates" him.

 

[The Barbarian]

According to an official cited in the Post on Friday, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity, the Justice Department presented "ample disclosure of relevant, material facts," to the FISA court, including that "the research was being paid for by a political entity."
The New York Times also reported Friday that the FISA court was told about political motivations behind the dossier. A Democratic memo written to rebut the allegations in Nunes' document said the FBI did, in fact, tell the court that the information in the Steele dossier was politically motivated, even if the bureau didn't mention that research that went into the dossier was paid for by Democrats, the Times reported, citing two people familiar with the Democratic memo.
The Wall Street Journal further reported that, according to a person familiar with the matter, the FISA application disclosed that Steele was paid by a law firm working for a major political party,
Steve Vladeck, a CNN legal analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law, tweeted Saturday that the news reports served as "proof that the #mehmo deliberately misrepresented the record to make the #FISA application look shadier than it was" and called the revelations "(f)atal to the memo's entire premise."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/03/politics/memo-dossier-christopher-steele-carter-page/index.html