Donald Trump Was Caught Declassifying An FBI File In Last Days Of His Presidency, According To The NYT

The final days of Donald Trump‘s presidency may have been even more tumultuous than previously thought. According to a new report from the New York Times, the twice-impeached former president approved a plan from Mark Meadows, former White House chief of staff, that involved giving an FBI file to a conservative journalist.

According to the NYT, then-president Trump agreed with Meadows’s scheme to get a set of redactions approved on a file of FBI information. The goal of this, the Times indicates, was to declassify the document before handing it over to a sympathetic journalist.

Meadows ultimately received Trump’s blessing to pursue the declassification of the binder, which contained unreleased information about the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation. (Crossfire Hurricane is the code name for the FBI investigation looking into purported links between Russian officials and Trump associates. It became the Mueller probe in 2017).

Within the binder, the publication revealed that FBI’s methods in the investigation could be found. It also contained text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two former FBI agents who had been bashing Trump. The hundreds of texts (that were sent in the months leading up to the 2016 election) included a note that deemed Trump to be an “idiot.”

Meadows allegedly dismissed concerns that declassifying the binder could compromise the FBI, Insider writes, as he said that Trump wanted the messages to be public. On January 17, 2021 (three days before the end of his presidency), a set of reactions was agreed upon. Trump then declassified the rest of the binder. While we know via the newspaper that Meadows’ intention was to give the newly declassified binder to a conservative journalist (according to those familiar with the plan), it is not clear who the journalist was or the outlet they were associated with.