Democrats respond to memo release, calling it 'dangerous'

The memo, from the GOP and led by House Intelligence Committee's chairman, Devin Nunes, alleges that then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe told the committee that no surveillance warrant would have been sought for a Trump campaign aide without the opposition research dossier on Trump written by ex-British intelligence office Christopher Steele.

Within minutes of the memo's release, Senate Democrats took to Twitter to share their disapproval of the release of the document, which most of them initially called a "dangerous" move.

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, slammed the release of the memo, saying it was "reckless and demonstrates an astonishing disregard for the truth."

"This will make it far more difficult for the Intelligence Committees to conduct meaningful, bipartisan oversight of intelligence activities in the future," he said in a statement. "This action was also taken without regard to the damage it could do to our ability to protect Americans from threats around the globe."

"Law enforcement opposes this," tweeted Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat. "The intelligence community opposes this. Even many Republicans oppose this. This is dangerous territory, it disrespects law enforcement, and it's an alarming partisan attack on efforts to investigate hostile foreign interference in our democracy."

Their colleague, Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, also criticized the release of the memo, echoing that it's "dangerous."

She tweeted, ".@realDonaldTrump's decision to declassify the partisan memo, made in cooperation w/ Congressional Republicans, is a dangerous attack on our justice system and the rule of law."

Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon called the memo "cherry-picked classified information" in a statement.

"This puts us in extremely dangerous territory," he said. "It upends the relationship between the intelligence community and Congress, threatening the ability for different branches of government to work together to protect the American people's safety."

This story is breaking and will be updated.