Let's take a stroll down memory lane, though. Remember the early days of the Trump administration? Remember how upset he got about leaks? No, not those leaks. The metaphorical ones. One of the classic bits was Sean Spicer holding a secret meeting excoriating his staff about leaks, and that meeting getting leaked immediately. There was the flap about personal and official cell phones, and.. any of this ringing a bell? Basically, the Trump White House is, and has always been kind of leaky. If it were any "Leakier," they'd have to worry about Donnie Hendrix! (No? Too obscure?)
Anyway, you know who else can play the leaking game? Besides Russian hookers, the FBI. The New York field office of the FBI was basically an anti-Clinton operation, and one of the notions floated to explain Comey's decision to intervene in the 2016 election was that he thought that if he didn't make an official announcement, a bunch of rogue agents would leak something about the Abedin/Weiner computer, so Comey figured he'd get ahead of it. Of course, this was just one of the ideas floated, but the FBI has been in the leaking game for a while, and we've learned plenty about the Russia investigation, Trump, and... well, lots. The FBI can leak whatever the hell they want and as long as Trump can't trace the leak, he can't prosecute anyone. Besides, the organization that would have to trace the leaker would be... the FBI.
However, if you are focused on the question of the Democratic response, or FBI counter-leaks, you are missing the point. Remember that Nunes put together that memo, or rather, instructed someone more literate to write a memo for the purpose of having a memo exist. It doesn't matter what's in it. Hence, my comments about Nunes being a stoner philosopher. By the same toke...n, no Democratic response would matter. The people for whom the Nunes "memo" matters would never listen, and don't know how to read. The Nunes "memo" exists so that Trump, Fox News and the rest of the GOP can claim that a memo exists proving that the entire Russia investigation is a "witch hunt." No facts necessary, and as I wrote earlier, the "memo" could be a Dr. Seuss book, shoved inside a manila folder with "Nunes memo" scrawled in crayon on the cover, with the "s" backwards, and the GOP would treat it the exact same way.
The flip side is that the Democratic response could be released, and be the most thoroughly researched, cogently written document in history, and the GOP would look for one dangling participle, claim that it discredits everything in the entire document, demand the kindergarten records of whoever wrote it and claim that the author once called the teacher, "mommy," which shows he's a sissy-boy, and say it with me now...
"FAKE NEWS!!!"
The Nunes memo is a joke. The FBI presented the fact that Steele was politically funded along with all context to the FISA court, Carter Page was under surveillance prior to the dossier... I could keep going, but Nunes is a lying moron. Facts are irrelevant these days, though, and just as facts are irrelevant to how the Nunes memo is being discussed, they would be irrelevant to how a Democratic response would be discussed.
What would matter?
The FBI may step up their leaks. I wonder what kinds of recordings they have. I wonder what happens if they start talking to the NSA. I wonder what would happen if they just started leaking records...
Will it happen? Not likely. Just idle speculation here. Documents and memos? They don't matter. We live in a society in which nobody knows how to read. (Hey! You're reading, though! Thanks!)
