President Donald Trump reportedly exploded in anger aboard Air Force One last week due to his frustration with the Justice Department and the Russia investigation.
Bloomberg reported Monday that the president erupted after learning that Associate Attorney General Stephen Boyd had warned against releasing a classified memo written by House Republicans that allegedly documents FBI surveillance abuse related to the Russia investigation.
The memo purportedly contains evidence that the FBI and Department of Justice are biased against Trump. House Republicans have pressed for the memo to be released publicly. But Boyd said it would be "extraordinarily reckless" for the memo to be released before the department had a chance to review it.
"We believe it would be extraordinarily reckless for the committee to disclose such information publicly without giving the department and the FBI the opportunity to review the memorandum and to advise the (committee) of the risk of harm to national security and to ongoing investigations that could come from public release," Boyd wrote in a letter to House Intelligence chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA).
"Indeed, we do not understand why the committee would possibly seek to disclose classified and law enforcement sensitive information without first consulting with the relevant members of the intelligence community," Boyd added.
Trump learned of Boyd's remarks while traveling to Davos, and after the outburst White House officials scrambled to convey the president's displeasure to the Department of Justice, according to Bloomberg.
House Democrats have insisted that the memo is an attempt to undermine the FBI and Robert Mueller's investigation. "Like its other attacks on those agencies, this represents another effort to distract from the Russia probe and undermine the Special Counsel. With this latest gambit, however, the Majority seeks to selectively and misleadingly characterize classified information in an effort to protect the President at any cost," Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said in a statement last week.
The news of Trump's outburst comes just one day after The Washington Post reported that the president was growing frustrated with his perceived lack of influence over the Justice Department.
Trump viewed Boyd's remarks as "yet another example of the Justice Department undermining him and stymieing Republican efforts to expose what the president sees as the politically motivated agenda behind Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe," Bloomberg reported.
