WASHINGTON, Sept 18: President Donald Trump has directed the Justice Department to immediately declassify additional information related to the investigation into possible election meddling by Russia, the White House said on Monday.
Among the documents Trump ordered the Justice Department and the director of national intelligence to make public are 20 additional pages of FBI surveillance warrant applications related to his former campaign adviser Carter Page.
Trump also ordered the release of FBI interview reports with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr related to the Russia probe, and FBI interview reports related to the Page surveillance warrant applications, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
Finally, Trump directed the Justice Department to release, without redactions, text messages relating to the Russia probe from former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and other officials, including recently fired FBI agent Peter Strzok. Strzok has come under fire for sending texts disparaging Trump as a presidential candidate. Trump fired Comey in May 2017, originally saying that he fired him over the Russia probe, and then this past May contradicting that and saying that the firing was not “because of the phony Russia investigation.” McCabe was fired in March by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump’s demands mark his latest effort to turn up the heat on the Justice Department, whom he and his Republican allies have accused of running a tainted probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Democrats say that Trump and his allies are politicizing a law enforcement investigation in order to protect the White House. A spokeswoman for the FBI declined to comment on Trump’s directive. But one source familiar with the process, speaking on condition of anonymity, said neither the Justice Department nor the FBI had any idea how the declassification process was supposed to work in this case – suggesting (AGENCIES)
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