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Meadows and Trump planned to turn over the FBI files to conservative journalists. According to the NYT.
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Reportedly, they rushed to obtain a series of edits to the file, which Trump declassified.
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The plan was scrapped after DOJ officials warned that making the files public could violate privacy laws, according to The Times.
During the final days of his presidency, then-President Donald Trump approved Mark Meadows’ plan to authorize a series of edits to FBI intelligence files to be declassified and handed over to sympathetic journalists. I made it possible. New York Times.
Former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows obtained Trump’s permission to declassify a binder containing undisclosed information about the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, according to The Times.
Crossfire Hurricane, the codename for an FBI investigation into ties between Russian officials and Trump associates, became the subject of a Mueller investigation in 2017.
Binder detailed the FBI’s methods of investigation. According to The Times, it involved a series of text messages between two former FBI agents who were smearing Trump, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Hundreds of messages sent in the run-up to the 2016 election included statements such as: Trump is an idiot.
Meadows reportedly dismissed concerns that declassifying Binder could endanger the FBI, saying Trump wanted the message to be made public.
Trump did not immediately respond to an insider’s request for comment.
And just three days before his presidency ended, a series of edits were agreed and Trump declassified the remaining binders, the paper said.
The Times reported that Meadows intended to hand over the newly declassified binders to conservative journalists, according to people familiar with the plan. It is not immediately clear who the journalist was and what medium he worked for.
Meadows did not immediately respond to an insider’s request for comment.
Plans to hand over the binder were scrapped after Justice Department officials warned Meadows that disseminating text messages between Strzok and Page violated privacy laws and could lead to lawsuits, according to The Times. .
The revelation comes from The New York Times’ deep dive into how Trump and his associates handled documents during their final days at the White House.
Trump’s paperwork is focused on the next moment FBI Raid on Mar-a-Lago And in a Justice Department investigation, he broke every law.
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