Donald Trump in the final days of his presidency repeatedly threatened to expel government sources implicated in the Trump-Russia investigation, a deep anti-state revenge fantasy that still obsesses him to this day, according to two former senior Trump aides and another person close to the file.
One of these sources tells rolling stone that in the days following the Capitol riot on January 6, the then-president, sometimes brandishing pieces of paper, loudly complained that nothing identifying facts in Russia’s highly sensitive documents should be obscured. Trump would insist, the source said, that everything should “be out there” so the American people can see the truth about who “did it” to the president.
Ultimately, top intelligence officials and other Trump lieutenants dissuaded him from disclosing the identities of the sources before he left the White House, the sources say. Instead, Trump’s team hired him to verify a series of heavily redacted reports they said would help protect the work and safety of Russia-linked informants.
But a third source close to the situation says this obsession with exposing confidential sources continues. The former president, according to the source, still speaks sporadically about the need to publish “the names” in the public records. A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to rolling stonerequest for comment.
As Trump faces accusations that he hoarded sensitive classified documents at his private residence in Florida, the last-minute battle over redactions shows how his disregard for security concerns has at times rattled even close aides from him.
Trump’s threats against our sources were part of a larger push during the chaotic end of his presidency. In December 2020, as the odds of a successful election annulment grew, Trump and his chief of staff Mark Meadows pushed the Justice Department to declassify a filing cabinet full of documents related to the FBI’s Russia investigation into 2016. In his memoir, Meadows described himself in the final hours of the Trump presidency as going through line-by-line “notes, memos, and emails” in the filing cabinet to make sure he “wouldn’t inadvertently release the sources and methods.
Hours before President Joe Biden takes office in January 2021, the White House sent a presidential memo to the director of national intelligence, the director of the CIA, and the acting attorney general. The memo ordering the binder’s declassification refers to the FBI, which stated its “continuing objection to any further declassification” of the binder on the grounds that specific passages “included actions of the intelligence community.” In an apparent nod to efforts to bring the then-president back from the “names” release, the memo says his declassification order “does not require the disclosure of certain personally identifiable information.”
The order also exempts from declassification any material that “must be protected from disclosure pursuant to orders of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,” according to the memo.
At the same time, Trump gave conservative journalist John Solomon access to some of the documents. In a statement to rolling stoneSolomon says that on January 19, 2021, Trump allowed him “twice, to briefly review a stack of documents that I was told were the declassified documents” and that he received “a small sub- set of declassified documents” of the Ministry of Justice. Department in the mail at the time.
By its outlet, just the news, Solomon later reported that the documents included “transcripts of interceptions made by the FBI of Trump aides” and “a declassified copy of the final FISA warrant approved by an intelligence court.” The Justice Department also mailed him a declassified transcript of FBI informant Stefan Halper’s conversations with the former Trump campaign adviser. Carter page and notes of an FBI interview with Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence officer who circulated a dossier containing allegations about Trump’s dealings with Russia, both of which featured in the 2021 Solomon stories.
The binder of documents that obsessed Trump in the final days of his presidency was never released in full, but interest by Trump and his allies in gaining access to the files has continued since he left the White House.
Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) wrote to the Justice Department earlier this year to complain that the department “has failed to declassify a single page” since Trump released his memo. In attempting to review the documents, the senators said their staff spent “several days and countless hours in classified ministry facilities” trying to locate documents allegedly covered by the order, as ministry officials of Justice had “failed to identify them”.
Solomon, named Trump’s representative to the National Archives this summer, says he continued to request access to the memos of a slice of documents, but the Archives told him that a set is not available in an “easily discernible manner” while another set that remains with the Justice Department is awaiting “redactions requested under the Privacy Act.”
Trump, meanwhile, reportedly continued to press for the release of documents related to the Russian investigation. The former president would have tried to barter with the National Archives to return presidential records detained at his Mar-a-Lago residence in exchange for the release of an unspecified batch of documents he claims misrepresent the FBI’s 2016 Russia investigation, according The New York Times.