In January, U.S. Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sent a classified letter questioning the contradiction between the footnotes and what was made public by Horowitz's team regarding the bureau's Crossfire Hurricane investigation. The letter was first reported by SaraACarter.com. In January, the senator's did not disclose what section of the December FISA report contradicts the footnotes in their findings.

The declassification came at the request Grassely and Johnson, whose committees have been dedicated to uncovering the truth regarding the FBI's malfeasance during the bureau's probe into President Donald Trump's campaign and its now debunked theory that campaign officials colluded with Russia. Those footnotes deal directly with the evidence collected by the FBI from former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, whose salacious and debunked dossier was the bulk of information used to seek a warrant from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to spy on Page.