Special counsel pressing Trump officials on Russia probe documents, report says

’At least three’ figures in Mr Trump’s inner circle have been pressed by prosecutors on whether Mr Trump took ‘thousands of pages’ of documents from the White House

Investigators working for Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith have reportedly questioned multiple ex-Trump administration officials about the fate of a large tranche of classified documents pertaining to the FBI probe into Russia’s campaign of interference in the 2016 election.

A report by Murray Waas, a freelance investigative reporter and former National Journal staff writer, wrote on Wednesday that “at least three” figures in Mr Trump’s inner circle have been pressed by prosecutors on whether Mr Trump took “thousands of pages” of documents from the White House — including many bearing classification markings — with an eye towards making them public in attempt to discredit the Justice Department’s probe into alleged ties between his 2016 campaign and the Russian Federation.

The twice-impeached ex-president attempted to declassify many of the records at issue before he left office with the issuance of 19 January 2021 memo with the title “Declassification of Certain Materials Related to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation”. Though he ordered the documents “declassified to the maximum extent possible” it’s unclear whether that directive was followed.

Mr Weiss reports that the FBI and DOJ slow-walked the declassification order, regarding “cited concerns about how compromising the identities of FBI informants could dissuade witnesses and human intelligence sources from cooperating with US law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the future” as well as concerns that releasing some of the records would violate the Privacy Act.

At the time, Mr Trump reportedly complained that he would not have the power to make the records public once he left office.

Citing “sources familiar” with the ongoing probe, Mr Weiss reported that prosecutors have asked the ex-Trump officials about conversations they might have had with Mr Trump about the records, as well as talks between senior DOJ officials and the White House Counsel’s Office, as well as a 20 January memo in which then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows appeared to reverse some of Mr Trump’s order, citing the aforementioned Privacy Act concerns.