Trump Ordered Total Declassification of All Russiagate, Clinton Email Probe Documents

By Staff, Agencies

US President Donald Trump said he authorized the release of “any and all” documents related to the Russiagate conspiracy theory and the Hillary Clinton email scandal, noting the material would be completely free of redactions.

“I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any and all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax,” Trump said in a tweet on Tuesday night.

Trump followed up his first post with another missive stating he had declassified all information on Russiagate “long ago,” lamenting that his own personnel have “acted very slowly” to release new material.

The announcement came hours after Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe authorized the release of a number of documents linked to the Trump-Russia scandal, including hand-written notes from former CIA Director John Brennan, who served during the latter half of the Barack Obama administration.

The declassified notes suggest that Brennan had briefed Obama on a “plan” by then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to smear Trump with allegations of ‘Russian collusion’ as a means of “distracting the public from her use of a private email server” before the 2016 election.

Ratcliffe originally declassified the notes – as well as a 2016 CIA memo addressed to then-FBI Director James Comey and a Russian intelligence assessment obtained by US agencies – in late September. All three documents were mentioned by Ratcliffe in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham [R-South Carolina], and indicated that Clinton worked to fabricate the Russiagate scandal in order to vilify her electoral rival and deflect negative media coverage. None of them were released to a broader public at the time.