FBI, White House fight over controversial Republican memo
Washington: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has clashed with US President Donald Trump over a Republican intelligence memo, developing the rift between the leader and the agency probing Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
The memo apparently accuses the Justice Department and the agency of abusing a surveillance programme known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) during the 2016 election campaign.
FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday sent a striking signal to the White House, issuing a rare public warning that the memo omits key information that could impact its veracity.
The move set up an unpleasant clash between Wray and Trump, who already has fired one FBI Director and has repeatedly expressed a desire to remove the Attorney General and others connected to the Russia investigation.
The President wants the memo released and told his advisers that he believes it makes the case that the FBI and Justice Department officials acted inappropriately when they sought the highly-classified warrant in October 2016 on campaign adviser Carter Page, the New York Times reported.
"We have grave concerns about the material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy," the FBI said.
On Wednesday, White House chief of staff John Kelly predicted the memo would be released "pretty quick" and that "the whole world will see it".
Trump himself was overheard telling a Republican congressman after the State of the Union address he will "100 per cent" release the memo.
Democrats made a last-minute attempt to halt the process on late Wednesday.
The Justice Department has warned repeatedly that the memo, prepared by Republican staff members on the House Intelligence Committee, is "misleading" and that its release would set a bad precedent for making government secrets public, including sensitive sources of information and methods of intelligence gathering.
FBI officials said the President "was prioritizing politics over national security and is putting the bureau's reputation at risk".
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MP: 7-year-old girl raped and murdered; minor relative detained
Barwani (MP), Jan 28 (PTI) Police on Wednesday detained a 17-year-old relative of a seven-year-old girl in Barwani district of Madhya Pradesh for allegedly raping her and killing her by throwing her into a canal, a police official said.
Superintendent of Police Jagdish Dawar told reporters that the body of the child was recovered from the Indira Sagar Canal on January 26, following information from residents of a village in the Rajpur police station area of the district.
He said the post-mortem report concluded severe injuries to the girl’s private parts and attributed her death to drowning.
Dawar said a 17-year-old boy, a close relative of the girl, has been detained in connection with the rape-murder.
The teenager told the police that he kidnapped the girl from her home on the night of January 25 while her family members were asleep, took her to a nearby canal and raped her, according to the official.
When the girl started screaming during the sexual assault, the minor boy allegedly threw her into the canal, with the intention of killing her. The child drowned in the water body, the official said.
The detained minor will be produced in a juvenile court.
A case has been registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and an investigation is underway, he added.
