[ad_1]
According to a statement released Monday by White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, the order included selective portions of the Carter Page foreign intelligence law enforcement act and "all FBI reports ".
The president also ordered the Justice Department to publish all messages related to the investigation by former FBI director James Comey, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, the former FBI agent, Lisa Page and Bruce Ohr. . Trump has distinguished all these people in the past with scathing criticism, often on Twitter.
"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 advisor, to ensure the security of US interests. Federal Investigations is already working with the national intelligence director to comply with the order of the president, "said a spokesman for the Justice Department in a statement.
A source close to the declassification process confirmed to CNN that the public broadcast would not be Monday night.
The Capitol Hill Democrats immediately decried the order.
"President Trump, in a manifest abuse of power, has decided to intervene in an ongoing judicial investigation by ordering the selective dissemination of documents that he believes are useful to his defense member Adam Schiff in a statement. "Regarding some of these materials, the FBI and the Ministry of Justice have already informed me that they would regard their publication as a red line that should not be crossed as they may compromise the sources. and methods. "
Conservatives in the House of Representatives openly declared that Trump would declassify documents related to the investigation in Russia for weeks, even though they acknowledged that they did not know if the documents would help or hinder their inappropriate conduct.
"We do not know, and that's why we need to see them," said Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican Freedom Caucus member and critic of the investigation. on Russia. declassified materials will show. "Transparency is a good thing and Americans need to know what's in it."
For months, Trump's allies at Capitol Hill have defended the story that the FBI and the Justice Department had wrongly obtained a monitoring order on Page, a Trump campaign foreign policy advisor, under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Their main argument centered on the notes written by the former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, who, according to the Republicans, had anti-Trump prejudices which, according to them, had not been fully disclosed in the request of FISA .
Their last effort could turn against the narration that Republicans have spent months making, though the declassified documents confirmed that the FBI had more than the record to warrant Page's scrutiny and that
In July, the FBI released redacted versions of the FISA warrants, which shows that the agency feared Page to be a Russian recruiting target and had worked with the Kremlin. Page denied the allegations. A footnote also revealed a political motivation behind the Steele record and indicated that the person behind it was seeking information to discredit Trump's campaign, but Trump did not order the vast majority of that Monday.
About 30 members of Congress reviewed largely unredacted versions of the highly sensitive applications of FISA, but not the most virulent members of the current declassification campaign.
CNN's Manu Raju contributed to this report.
[ad_2]Source link
