The Justice Department and FBI will find it difficult to comply with Donald Trump’s order to declassify mountains of documents related to the Russia investigation, and are just beginning a lengthy process that could test the president’s patience even though he hasn’t yet read the materials himself.
Trump on Tuesday demanded the public release of ‘all text messages relating to the Russia investigation’ from James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Bruce Ohr, Peter Strzok, and his former lover Lisa Page.
He ordered that those materials must be declassified ‘without redactions,’ meaning the DOJ won’t be permitted to black out portions deemed too sensitive to reveal.
But another tranche of documents will generate a protracted back-and-forth between the agency and Trump’s director of national intelligence over how much is too much to show, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
President Donald Trump has ordered the declassification and release of a trove of text messages and documents related to the Justice Department’s Russia probe, but hasn’t read any of the materials himself
Trump’s order included text messages from fired FBI Director James Comey, setting up a public showdown with the former official who has already torched him in a best-selling book
Trump also ordered the release of documents related to a FISA court warrant application whose approval allowed the government to spy on former Trump campaignb foreign policy adviser Carter Page
Much of the internal debate will center on pages from a Justice Department warrant application to a secret foreign-intelligence court that allowed U.S. agents to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, and on related interview reports prepared by the FBI.
The president also told the DOJ to declassify reports tied to its interview with official Bruce Ohr, whose wife worked at the opposition-research firm behind an infamous and unverified dossier of dirt on then-candidate Trump. Ohr is known to have been in contact with the dossier’s author, former British spy Christopher Steele.
Trump on Tuesday told The Hill, a Washington, D.C. newspaper, that he hasn’t read the documents he ordered declassified. But he aims to let the public look at them and decide their significance.
‘All I want to do is be transparent,’ he said.
Document declassification orders, whether triggered by the White House or some other level of government, involve a complex inter-agency review process.
That can include input from any or all of America’s 17 intelligence agencies.
A Justice Department spokesperson said Monday evening that the document review process had already begun.
Texts from former senior FBI agent Peter Strzok (left) and FBI lawyer Lisa Page (right) will be declassified, giving the public more information about the amorous pair who dished in 2016 about how they could ‘stop’ Trump from winning the White House
‘When the President issues such an order, it triggers a declassification review process that is conducted by various agencies within the intelligence community, in conjunction with the White House Counsel, to seek to ensure the safety of America’s national security interests,’ the person said.
‘The Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are already working with the Director of National Intelligence to comply with the President’s order.’
Republicans helming two key congressional committees have been pushing for the declassification of the surveillance documents and text messages for months, arguing that they would reveal bias within the criminal justice system that Trump believes tainted the Russia probe long before he took office.
Democrats on those same panels have argued that declassification would be a crass political move in advance of contentious midterm congressional elections.
California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, accused Trump on Monday of a ‘clear abuse’ of his presidential power.