John Solomon – Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe has been authorized by President Trump to declassify this week highly sensitive evidence that shows the FBI had immediate warning signs that its Russia collusion probe was based on flawed evidence and a political dirty trick launched by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Officials told Just the News the evidence to be made public will provide the underlying materials supporting the explosive revelation Ratcliffe made last week: In fall 2016, U.S. intelligence referred to the FBI information that Hillary Clinton had ordered her 2016 campaign to concoct a false narrative that Democratic rival Donald Trump was colluding with Moscow.
The officials said the information could be released as early as Tuesday. Trump gave the instructions while in the hospital over the weekend for coronavirus treatment, they also said.
CIA Director Gina Haspel has opposed releasing some of the information on the grounds that the agency could not fully determine whether some of the Russian intelligence that the U.S. intercepted was misinformation.
Ratcliffe has decided to release the materials in part because they provide insight into possible red flags the FBI ignored in pursuing a flawed Russia collusion probe, the officials said.
Ratcliffe is also exploring declassifying evidence requested to be released by House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). The evidence includes a referral Nunes made to the CIA inspector general in 2018 about flaws in the U.S. intelligence assessment about Russian interference as well as evidence showing what Christopher Steele’s primary sub-source for his dossier told the FBI and what the bureau knew about the sub-source’s ties to Russia.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows hinted at that declassification on Monday.
Trump has “already tasked me with getting some declassification rolling in a follow-up to some of the requests that Devin Nunes and others have made,” Meadows said.
Nunes said he believed the evidence — including three interviews the FBI did with Steele’s sub-source confirming the dossier was flawed — is explosive.
“The documents that are underlying what we now have seen — I’ve only seen a few of those — they’re definitely smoking guns,” Nunes told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. “That information definitely needs to be made available to the American public.
“The American public needs to see the three reports that we know about, at least from the Democrats’ Russian spy that they hired,” he added.” So those are additional documents that we need to see.
Democrats have already previewed their planned attacks, suggesting the release of evidence just a month before the election was political and possibly infected with Russian disinformation.
“It’s very disturbing to me that 35 days before an election, a director of national intelligence would release unverified Russian rumint,” said Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.).
Democrats’ arguments that Clinton wasn’t behind the Russia collusion probe are strongly challenged by the evidence.
Steele testified he told the FBI in his first meeting about the dossier in July 2016 that Clinton had authorized his research. Bank records and testimony showed Steele’s dossier was paid for by the law firm representing Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
And former FBI General Counsel James Baker testified the bureau was inundated with unverified allegations of Trump-Russia collusion from Clinton sources, including from long-time Clinton associate Cody Shearer.
Baker described the pressure campaign on the FBI by Clinton associates as unusual and uncomfortable.
“I had a jaundiced eye about everything, yes,” Baker testified. “I had skepticism about all this stuff. I was concerned about all of this. This whole situation was horrible, and it was novel and we were trying to figure out what to do, and it was highly unusual.”
SF Source Just The News Oct 2020