Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe plans to declassify more documents soon related to the investigation into the alleged Donald Trump campaign collusion with Russian actors.
When he was a congressman before becoming intelligence chief, Ratcliffe said, he didn’t believe the FBI had proper predicate to continue the counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign, a belief bolstered by the guilty plea from former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith and documents that Ratcliffe’s office has released.
“The question now is: Did the FBI have a proper predicate to begin a counter-intelligence investigation at all? And that’s the issue that John Durham is looking at, and that’s the issue that I’m continuing to look at,” Ratcliffe said.
“I pledged to a bipartisan group of senators that I would look at all of the underlying intelligence surrounding the intelligence community’s assessment of Russia’s interference and this idea of Trump–Russia collusion.
“So, I’ve spent the last three months, and I’ve declassified certain documents, and I plan to declassify additional documents. But I’m not going to prejudice John Durham’s work in connection with that, so we’ve had to coordinate with his office about the timing of that. But I’m optimistic that I'll be declassifying additional documents soon.”
Intelligence officials have been making sure Durham has access to all the documents he needs.
“He’s looking at the same documents that I am,” Ratcliffe said. “And so our work is running on a parallel path. Now his is a criminal investigation, he’s not sharing his findings or the work that he’s doing. But I’m coordinating with him to make sure that he has the intelligence documents that he needs to do his work.”
Some documents that might otherwise be declassified will not if it would impact Durham’s work, the intelligence chief said.
Records declassified by Ratcliffe and his predecessor revealed important information about the attempts to link the Trump campaign with Russia.
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