President Trump directs declassification of documents, text messages related to Russia probe
President Donald Trump is declassifying a trove of documents related to the early days of the FBI's Russia investigation, including portions of a secret surveillance warrant and former FBI Director James Comey's text messages.
That's according to a statement from press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
"At the request of a number of committees of Congress, and for reasons of transparency, the President has directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to provide for the immediate declassification of the following materials: (1) pages 10-12 and 17-34 of the June 2017 application to the FISA court in the matter of Carter W. Page; (2) all FBI reports of interviews with Bruce G. Ohr prepared in connection with the Russia investigation; and (3) all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all Carter Page FISA applications. "In addition, President Donald J. Trump has directed the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to publicly release all text messages relating to the Russia investigation, without redaction, of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr."
Trump is making the extraordinary move in response to calls from his allies in Congress who say they believe the Russia investigation was tainted by anti-Trump bias within the ranks of the FBI and Justice Department.
Trump is declassifying about 20 pages of the warrant obtained to monitor the communications of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and FBI interviews conducted to secure that warrant.
The move comes as Trump continues his efforts to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller's probe.
The declassification of the documents was quickly praised by Trump allies in Congress and attacked by Democrats.
"Transparency wins. This is absolutely the right call from @POTUS," said Rep. Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, on Twitter. Meadows, who had pushed for the documents' release, said it will allow the American people to decide "what happened at the highest levels of their FBI and Justice Department."
But Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, called Trump's decision a "clear abuse of power" intended to advance a "false narrative" to help in his defense from Mueller's probe.
Schiff said the FBI and Justice Department had said releasing the documents would cross a "red line" because doing so would compromise sources and methods.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.