Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson have written a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding that he declassifies the documents related to the original Trump-Russia investigation.
The letter states that AG Garland has “failed” to follow through on President Donald Trump’s order to declassify all records related to the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” probe that was triggered by fabricated claims from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
The two Senators are demanding Garland “produce those records to Congress and the American people without improper redactions.”
They wrote:
“We remain concerned that over one year from the date then-President Trump directed the Justice Department to declassify certain Crossfire Hurricane records the Justice Department has not only failed to declassify a single page, the Department has failed to identify for Congress records that it knows with certainty to be covered by the declassification directive.
“Your letter noted that on July 9, 2021, the Department ‘offered to compare the documents we understand to be covered by the Memorandum with the documents that had been previously provided to Congress.’
“However, your letter also stated that the Department ‘has been taking steps to determine’ which documents can be disclosed and that review is ‘ongoing.’
“It is incumbent upon the Department to determine which records are covered by the declassification directive.
“When the Department is able to (1) identify with certainty the records subject to the declassification directive; (2) confirm the records are not those that have already been reviewed by our staff; and (3) agree that no improper redactions will be placed on those records, our staff stand ready to review in camera prior to production to Congress.
“Absent those conditions, our staff should not have to spend potentially multiple days and countless hours in the Department’s classified facility only to play a guessing game with the Department about what document may or may not be covered by the declassification directive and potentially review records that have already been produced to Congress.
“Our oversight efforts are based on our unyielding belief that the American people deserve to know the complete truth about the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
“We request a detailed response with respect to those questions and a commitment to the aforementioned conditions no later than March 1, 2022.
From Fox News:
The Trump administration also declassified a 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment footnote, which showed the anti-Trump dossier created by Christopher Steele and paid for by the Clinton campaign through law firm Perkins Coie, had “limited corroboration.”
That dossier helped serve as the basis for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants obtained against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
Meanwhile, Ratcliffe, in October 2020, declassified a CIA memo sent to then FBI Director James Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok referring Clinton’s “plan” to the FBI for potential investigative action.
…”Per FBI verbal request, CIA provides the below examples of information the CROSSFIRE HURRICANE fusion cell has gleaned to date,” the memo continued.
“An exchange [REDACTED] discussing US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.”
I’m about to give a speech on the senate floor on how the Trump campaign & the trump presidency was spied on /CSPAN usually covers it or u can get on my website after at https://t.co/VvMQPL8rwW
— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) February 15, 2022
