[ad_1]
President Trump on Monday ordered the Department of Justice to declassify important documents from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections. (Evan Vucci / AP)
Matt Zapotosky
A national security reporter covering the Department of Justice
Devlin Barrett
Reporter focused on national security and law enforcement
President Trump on Monday ordered the Department of Justice to declassify important documents from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, threatening to provoke a confrontation with federal forces. .
In a statement, the White House said Trump was ordering the department to immediately declassify parts of the secret court order to monitor former campaign advisor Carter Page, as well as any interviews they had conducted while the officials were asking for the order.
Trump also asked the department to publicly publish the unexpurgated text messages of several former officials of the Justice Department and the FBI, including former FBI director James B. Comey and deputy director Andrew McCabe. .
For months, conservative lawmakers have been asking the ministry to release documents related to Russia and others, saying the police were hiding information that could discredit the investigation being conducted by Special Adviser Robert S. Mueller III.
Trump was sympathetic – although he had refrained from using his official declassification power to force Justice Department officials to hand over documents that they would not otherwise have. In doing so, it significantly increases the stakes.
The Department of Justice had already handed thousands of pages of documents to Congress, although its leaders had made it clear that they would not cross the line because the publication of some documents might put the sources at risk or harm an ongoing investigation.
The way they would react to the President's order was unclear. FBI and DOJ spokespersons did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), A prominent member of the House's Intelligence Committee, said the order was an "obvious abuse of power" and that the FBI and the Justice Department had already spoken to him about it. certain documents. that they would consider their release as a red line that should not be crossed as they may compromise sources and methods. "
"It is obvious that this has no consequence for a president who cares nothing about the country and anything that concerns his personal interest," Schiff said.
But Rep. Mark Meadows (NC), who called for the release of the equipment, praised the move.
"Transparency wins," he said in a tweet. "It's absolutely the right call from @POTUS. It is time to get the whole truth on the table so that the Americans can decide for themselves what happened at the highest level of their FBI and their Justice Department.
The White House said in a statement that Trump's order intervened at the request of "several congressional committees" and that it had been made "for reasons of transparency". In addition to publishing documents on Page, Comey and McCabe, the president ordered the department to declassify the interviews with the Justice Department official, Bruce G. Ohr, who was working in the Deputy Attorney General's office and had conversations with the author of a controversial file.
Trump also ordered the publication of written messages by FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Strzok and Page were both involved in the investigation of Russia, as well as the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private mail server.
Earlier this month, conservative lawmakers issued a public appeal to Trump to publish all the documents in question, and they made it clear that they hoped to use what they found for discredit the Mueller probe. They rented the move Monday.
"These documents will reveal to the American people some of the systemic corruption and systemic prejudices that have occurred at the highest levels of the DOJ and the FBI, including the use of our intelligence community's tools for partisan political purposes," he said. said Matt Gaetz. -Florida.).
Former officials said the president's action was troubling and seemed politically motivated.
"This order is an unprecedented diversion of the president's declassification authority for purely political reasons, and manifests a dangerous disregard for the protection of information developed in sensitive counterintelligence investigations," said David Laufman, former head of the Counter-Intelligence Section who had been involved in the case of Russia.
[ad_2]
Source link
