Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe revealed that he has handed over nearly 1,000 pages of documents to assist in the Justice Department’s inquiry into the Trump-Russia investigators being led by U.S. Attorney John Durham.
“At my direction, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has now provided almost 1,000 pages of materials to the Department of Justice in response to Mr. Durham’s document requests,” Ratcliffe said in a statement on Wednesday. “I will continue to ensure the Intelligence Community’s responsiveness to the DOJ’s requests. We also look forward to supporting the DOJ in further declassifications consistent with their investigation. As the President has made clear, we must be appropriately transparent with the American people and give them the confidence that the extraordinary work of Intelligence professionals is never misused or politicized.”
Ratcliffe, who has served as Trump’s spy chief overseeing the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies since May, first shared the statement with Axios in a report that cited “a source with direct knowledge of the materials” who claimed that Ratcliffe “has approved the release” to DOJ investigators “a large binder full of documents” to assist Durham’s investigation into the conduct of law enforcement and intelligence officials involved in examining ties between President Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia. The report also said Ratcliffe “has been working on this batch of documents for a number of weeks.” The move by Ratcliffe follows repeated calls by Trump for more information to be declassified and made public.
“I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!” Trump tweeted Tuesday night, adding, “All Russia Hoax Scandal information was Declassified by me long ago. Unfortunately for our Country, people have acted very slowly, especially since it is perhaps the biggest political crime in the history of our Country. Act!!!”
Trump’s tweets Tuesday evening came hours after Ratcliffe declassified two heavily redacted Russia-related documents, including handwritten notes from former CIA Director John Brennan showing he briefed then-President Barack Obama in 2016 on an unverified Russian intelligence report claiming former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton planned in July 2016 on tying then-candidate Trump to Russia’s hack of the Democratic National Committee to distract from her improper use of a private email server.
Newly declassified records also include a September 2016 CIA counterintelligence referral on the allegations to former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Operations Peter Strzok.
Brennan responded to Ratcliffe’s declassification move on CNN on Tuesday, saying, “It is appalling, his selective declassification of information that clearly is designed to advance the political interests of Donald Trump and Republicans who are aligned with him.” Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner said last week that “it’s very disturbing to me that 35 days before an election, a director of national intelligence would release unverified Russian rumint [rumor intelligence].”
Soon after he released a letter last week about the Russian intelligence analysis on Clinton, Ratcliffe issued a follow-up statement that said, “This is not Russian disinformation and has not been assessed as such by the intelligence community.”
Durham’s investigation, which began more than a year ago, has been subject to intense scrutiny, although little is publicly known about what his team is examining beyond the occasional media report. A top prosecutor from his team, Nora Dannehy, abruptly resigned in mid-September, after which Democrats demanded the Justice Department’s independent watchdog to open an “emergency investigation” into whether Barr, Durham, and others are taking steps to influence the 2020 election improperly.
