Trump orders declassification of surveillance application, release of Comey texts
President Donald Trump has moved to immediately release a tranche of former FBI Director James Comey's text messages and declassify 20 pages of a surveillance application that targeted former campaign adviser Carter Page, his latest offensive against a Russia investigation that has ensnared associates and has consumed Trump's attention for much of his presidency.
The breadth of the order came as a surprise and landed amid a full-court White House effort to shore up the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, as he defends himself against a sexual assault allegation. Trump demanded that the FBI produce 20 pages of the surveillance application — which Republicans on Capitol Hill have suggested would help show anti-Trump bias at the highest levels of the FBI.
Trump also called for the release of senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr's notes related to the Russia probe. Ohr was a key conduit to the FBI for information provided by Christopher Steele, a former British spy who investigated Trump's relationship with Russia during the 2016 campaign and produced a dossier of damaging allegations — which Trump has derided as false.
Steele was hired by a firm that in turn had been tapped by Democrats to produce opposition research on Trump, a fact that Republicans have argued discredits Steele's findings and suggests the FBI relied on a partisan document to pursue allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians to influence the election.
But Democrats and FBI defenders have argued that the effort to discredit the probe is part of a GOP push to undermine the ongoing work of special counsel Robert Mueller, who continued the FBI's Russia investigation after Trump fired Comey in May 2017. Mueller has secured guilty pleas for a variety of crimes from former senior campaign officials, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, both of whom are cooperating in the investigation.
The FBI declined to comment.
“I can’t wait. To me it’s Christmas, my birthday and the Fourth of July all wrapped up into one,” said Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign adviser who has been questioned as part of the Russia probe.
“It couldn’t be fast enough,” Caputo said of the timing for the release of the materials
“Not only will this let Americans know how their country failed Carter Page and George Papadopolous, it will also let them understand how FISA has trampled all of our rights and never should be reauthorized again.”
One top Trump ally, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) quickly praised the president’s decision
“My colleagues in Congress and I have requested these documents for months, but have faced lengthy and unnecessary delays, redactions, and refusals from officials at the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” he said. These documents will reveal to the American people some of the systemic corruption and bias that took place at the highest levels of the DOJ and FBI, including using the tools of our intelligence community for partisan political ends.”
Neither DOJ nor the FBI has any idea how the redaction process for this announcement is being handled, and they think it’s possible that the White House is just doing it on its own and could release this material as early as Monday night, according to a source familiar with the process.
The White House described Trump's order as a move for "transparency" requested by various congressional committees. It called on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Justice Department and the FBI to immediately declassify the surveillance and Ohr documents as well as all FBI reports of interviews connected to the surveillance warrant on Page.
"In addition, President Donald J. Trump has directed the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to publicly release all text messages relating to the Russia investigation, without redaction, of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr," the announcement read.
The move, long foreshadowed by calls from Trump's top allies in Congress, dramatically heightens the confrontation between Trump and his own intelligence community, while Mueller also pursues allegations that Trump attempted to obstruct the Russia probe from the outset.
“Trump has ordered the release of sensitive information into an ongoing investigation of himself and his friends--information that his own Justice Department did not want released because it would jeopardize ongoing investigations,” said former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti. “That is corrupt, plain and simple.”
