President Trump announced that he authorized the declassification of all documents related to both the Trump-Russia investigation and the emails belonging to failed presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The president said that all documents declassified will not include any redactions.
“I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!” Trump tweeted Tuesday night, adding, “all Russia Hoax Scandal information was Declassified by me long ago. Unfortunately for our Country, people have acted very slowly, especially since it is perhaps the biggest political crime in the history of our Country. Act!!!”
Trump’s tweets came hours after Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe declassified two heavily redacted Russia-related documents, including handwritten notes from former CIA Director John Brennan showing he briefed then-President Barack Obama in 2016 on an unverified Russian intelligence report.
Clinton planned in July 2016 on tying then-candidate Trump to Russia’s hack of the Democratic National Committee to distract from her use of a private email server, as well as a September 2016 CIA counterintelligence referral on the allegations to former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Operations Peter Strzok, the report claimed.
“At the direction of the President of the United States, I have declassified the enclosed documents, inclusive of redactions. These documents are responsive to ongoing congressional oversight and investigation requests,” Trump’s intelligence chief said in a one-page letter to the Republican and Democratic leaders on the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Brennan responded to Ratcliffe’s declassification move on CNN on Tuesday, saying, “It is appalling, his selective declassification of information that clearly is designed to advance the political interests of Donald Trump and Republicans who are aligned with him.”
Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner said last week that “it’s very disturbing to me that 35 days before an election, a director of national intelligence would release unverified Russian rumint [rumor intelligence].”
But Ratcliffe himself said last week that “this is not Russian disinformation and has not been assessed as such by the intelligence community.”
Tuesday is not the first time that Trump has tweeted about declassifications.
On Sept. 6, 2018, Trump tweeted that he may carry out “Declassification to find Additional Corruption.”
Trump has promised FISA declassification action for a long time, for instance, and a White House press release that month said that Trump was directing his agencies to “provide for the immediate declassification” of a number of materials, including “pages 10-12 and 17-34 of the June 2017 application to the FISA court in the matter of Carter W. Page” and “all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all Carter Page FISA applications.”
But Trump caused some confusion when, on Sept. 21, 2018, he appeared to walk back the press release, tweeting: “I met with the DOJ concerning the declassification of various UNREDACTED documents. They agreed to release them but stated that so doing may have a perceived negative impact on the Russia probe. Also, key Allies’ called to ask not to release. Therefore, the Inspector General has been asked to review these documents on an expedited basis. I believe he will move quickly on this (and hopefully other things which he is looking at). In the end I can always declassify if it proves necessary. Speed is very important to me – and everyone!”
A federal judge sided with the Justice Department in May that Trump’s tweets did not constitute formal declassification orders. In May 2019, Trump gave Attorney General William Barr “full and complete authority to declassify information” related to his investigation of the Trump-Russia investigators, and Barr selected U.S. Attorney John Durham to lead this yet-ongoing and wide-ranging inquiry.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz said FBI interviews with British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s primary sub-source, U.S.-based and Russian-trained lawyer Igor Danchenko, “raised significant questions about the reliability of the Steele election reporting” and cast doubt on some of its biggest claims.
Horowitz’s lengthy December 2019 report criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who was never charged with a crime and has denied any wrongdoing, and for the bureau’s reliance on Steele’s Democratic-funded and discredited dossier.
Footnotes declassified earlier in 2020 show the FBI was aware that Steele’s dossier might have been compromised by Russian disinformation, and a newly declassified FBI summary shows Danchenko was previously investigated as a possible “threat to national security.”
After a two-year investigation, former special counsel Robert Mueller released a report in April 2019, concluding that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election in a “sweeping and systematic fashion” but “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.”
