by Daniel Chaitin at Washington Examiner
A cache of Russiagate documents President Donald Trump wanted released during his final days in office contained information about a pair of former leading FBI officials infamous for their private exchanges disparaging Trump, according to a new report.
Never-before-seen text messages between ex-FBI special agent Peter Strzok and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, as well as unreleased information about the FBI’s investigative steps, were part of this binder of Crossfire Hurricane investigation materials, the New York Times reported on Saturday.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows had a plan to give the binder to at least one conservative journalist, but he backed off when Justice Department officials warned that circulating these messages from Strzok and Page could put officials in jeopardy of being sued over privacy law violations, sources told the news outlet.
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There remains an air of mystery about the documents covered by Trump’s 11th-hour declassification memo issued on Jan. 9, 2021, at the end of his administration. In it, Trump declared he declassified materials in the binder and ordered the attorney general to implement the redactions proposed in the FBI’s Jan. 17 submission and “return to the White House an appropriately redacted copy.”
This order, Meadows wrote in his 2021 book The Chief’s Chief, would help ensure transparency in special counsel John Durham’s criminal inquiry into the Trump-Russia investigation that began with Crossfire Hurricane. “I am confident that President Trump’s order will provide much needed clarity and remove any excuse for the final Durham report to remain in a classified vault,” he wrote…
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