The Democrat Memo...

Let's be clear. The Democratic Memo was mostly a straight ahead strawman argument. It doesn't effectively defend, and doesn't even attempt to deny the main charges brought up by the original Republican memo on the subject. In stead it attempts to cleverly move the debate just slightly off kilter, attempting to debunk arguments that were never made by the original memo.

In fact, most of the relevant facts were simply echoed by the Democratic memo. The only difference appears to be that rather than be troubled by them, the Democrats seem more than willing to defend the same facts.

For instance, the fact that the FBI relied on the so called credibility of Richard Steele in their FICA application was a fact mentioned in both memos, but for different reasons. The Democrats basically parroted the argument of the FBI, that the dossier should be considered (even unverified) because they felt Steele was a trusted source. But the Republican never questioned Steele as a source. Rather they made the argument that Steele wasn't actually the source of the information as the warrant implies. The Republicans argued that Steele was simply a go between and was providing unverified information from paid Russian sources that were not (themselves) known to be trusted sources.

In other words, the Republicans questioned the reliability of the paid Russian sources. The Democrats countered with a defense of Richard Steele. This would be a classic strawman logical fallacy.

Another example of this same bit of information was the mention of the name George Papadopoulos in both memos. The Democrats state that the Steele dossier did not initiate the original counterintelligence operation by the FBI into the Trump campaign. They stated it as if it was a rebuttal of the Republican memo.  But the Republicans had also mentioned Papadopoulos in their memo as well as the reason a counterintelligence operation was initiated. They did however, argue that the dossier "fueled" the investigation moving forward.

In other words, the Republican claim that the unverified Steele dossier was used to fuel the FBI counterintelligence operation after it was initiated. The Democrats countered by demanding that the investigation was not initiated by the Steele dossier (something that was not in dispute). Again, another classic strawman logical fallacy.

The Democrats also state that the dossier was used "narrowly" in securing the warrant. This is an attempt to be clever by using a "semantic" argument that actually means one thing, while implying another. If you read the context of the term "narrowly" it suggests that a limited (or narrow) portion of the dossier was used in the FICA application. It does not actually argue (even though it implies) that the emphasis granted to this information was "narrow" in terms of the overall application.

The Republicans never made any claims that any portions of the dossier (other than the narrow subject associated with Carter Page) was used in the FICA warrant. So the Democrats making this argument are both using a strawman fallacy, while simultaneously using a semantic argument to imply something not actually stated.

There are several other examples of similar strawman arguments, where the original claims by the Republicans go untouched including:

• The fact that the Judges in question were never informed that Richard Steele was paid by the DNC and the Clinton campaign. (apparently there was some information provided in the footnotes about the fact that Steele was being paid by someone with political interest - but to what degree a judge could assume is a matter of question)  
• The fact that the Judges in question had been continuously made to believe that Yahoo news had "independent verification" of the information, when they knew that Steele himself had spoken to Yahoo (the Yahoo reporter admits that Steele was his source). 
• The fact that the Steele dossier made up a significant portion of the justification for the FICA warrant was not addressed by any new facts suggesting otherwise.  
• The fact that Deputy Director Andrew McCabe suggested that no warrant would have been sought without the Steele dossier was not seriously challenged as a matter of fact.

Bottom line is that there is really nothing new in the memo. It's basically a political argument that lacks any real new information. Even the articles I read from people who are fond of the Schiff memo are basically just happy with the tone, the argumentative nature, and the language used. Making a statement like "compelling evidence and probable cause to believe Page was knowingly assisting clandestine Russian intelligence activities in the U.S" doesn't really provide any actual "information" other than to let us know Adam Schiff's opinion. But it apparently is enough to satisfy those clinging to the notion that the FBI did everything by the books.  

I am still of the opinion that the Justice Department and Congress should simply declassify the application and the hearings on the subject. Then we can all judge for ourselves.