Trump orders declassification of FBI documents sought by Republicans: NPR

Updated at 19:43 ET

President Trump has ordered the intelligence community to "provide for the immediate declassification" of several documents related to the FBI and the Justice Department, the press secretary of the White House announced Monday.

The documents in question are specific pages of the June 2017 FISA mandate request for the Trump campaign foreign policy advisor, all FBI interview reports on all FISA mandate applications for Bruce Ohr's lawyer prepared about the FBI's investigation in Russia.

In addition, Trump ordered the DOJ and the FBI to publish all messages related to the investigation in Russia on former FBI director James Comey, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, the former FBI agent Ohr.

"When the president issues such an order, he triggers a declassification review process conducted by various intelligence community agencies, in collaboration with the White House legal counsel, to ensure the security of the interests of the community. American national security ". the Department of Justice said in a statement. "The Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are already working with the National Intelligence Director to comply with the order of the President."

One of Trump's allies in the House applauded the president's ruling. "I congratulate President Trump on his decision to declassify many documents, including several pages of the Carter FISA application and important messages related to the investigation in Russia," Matt Gaetz, R-Fla said in a statement. "My congressional colleagues and I have been asking for these documents for months, but we have had to deal with long and unnecessary delays, redactions, and refusals by officials from the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Justice. Investigation." Gaetz, who sits on the Judiciary Committee of the House, added that he "is waiting for the forthcoming publication of these documents and is examining them closely".

But the top Democratic intelligence committee in the House criticized Trump's decision. "President Trump, in a manifest abuse of power, has decided to intervene in an ongoing judicial investigation by ordering the selective publication of documents that, in his view, are useful to his D-Calif defense team., said in a statement that also raised concerns that intelligence sources and methods may be compromised by Trump's orderly publication.

The statement does not clearly indicate when declassification and publication of documents will take place. But it would be Trump's latest initiative and his administration to publish previously secret documents at the heart of the demands of the president's allies on Capitol Hill. These allies, especially conservative Republicans in the House, contend that the FBI's investigation in Russia is biased against Trump's early days.

In July, the administration released the previously filed warrant application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, made by the FBI in 2016, for authorization to monitor Carter Page communications. But these documents have been heavily redacted, entire pages have been masked. Earlier this year, in February, a note from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., Was also declassified and released. And later in the same month, a counter-memoir of Democrats from the same committee was declassified and published in redacted form.

Although Monday 's announcement was anticipated, the news comes as the Trump administration is grappling with allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

A month ago, the president made the headlines when he revoked the habilitation of former CIA director John Brennan, a persistent critic on TV and on Twitter, who played a role in transmitting information to the FBI. The revocation of Brennan's authorization and the publication by the White House of the names of other persons forming part of the federal forces or the intelligence community whose authorizations could also be compromised Campaign Chair Paul Manafort and former Trump Assistant Omarosa Manigault Newman were on tour to promote a new critical book about Trump and his administration.

In another move that was also expected on Monday, the Trump administration announced it was imposing 10 percent tariff on Chinese imports of $ 200 billion, the latest salvo in the growing trade dispute between the president and China.