CNN claimed on Friday that US intelligence operatives have been looking for a binder with evidence on the so-called ‘Russiagate’ inquiry for nearly three years. Former President Donald Trump wanted the folder declassified and made public, but his own staff apparently stymied the process, and the materials “vanished,” according to the network.
The binder was compiled by House Republicans in 2018, and elements made public since have revealed that the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Trump’s campaign – which morphed into Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ‘Russiagate’ probe – was founded on the false premise that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
While around a fifth of the binder’s contents have been published in unredacted form, a small section contained “raw intelligence the US and its NATO allies collected on Russians and Russian agents,” CNN claimed, citing anonymous sources. The US intelligence agencies never revealed what was actually in this section, and according to CNN, the CIA would only allow the Republicans to view the source files in a safe in the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
Nonetheless, the “intelligence community” said that these documents demonstrated that “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016” intended at damaging Hillary Clinton’s electoral chances and bolstering Trump’s campaign.
Trump had the contents of the binder declassified in the days before he departed the White House. According to CNN, this caused a panic among US intelligence services. CNN claimed that CIA Director Gina Haspel, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone all raced to Capitol Hill “to speak to congressional intelligence leaders about their deep concerns about Trump potentially releasing the material.”
It is unclear how the release of this material would have affected the agencies, but the fact that Trump wanted it released to Republican lawmakers and conservative journalists suggests that, like the rest of the binder’s contents, it would have bolstered Trump’s argument that the Russiagate investigation was a “hoax” and a “witch hunt.”
According to CNN’s sources, one copy of the binder made its way to the White House soon before Trump departed office. According to reports, the president directed that final redactions be done and that his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, begin sending copies to reporters. CNN stated that a copy was sent to conservative writer John Solomon, only for a Secret Service agent to be despatched the next day to retrieve it.
The binder was not among the materials discovered during the FBI’s raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence last year, and CNN said that Meadows most certainly had it, which Meadows’ lawyer rejects. CNN said that the US government is actively looking for the binder, however it is unknown why the network’s sources chose to speak to the public about the hunt now, more than two years after it began.
The piece was written by CNN journalists Jeremy Herb, Katie Bo Lillis, Natasha Bertrand, Evan Perez, and Zachary Cohen. During Trump’s presidency, all have been known to publish information leaked to the network by spies, with Bertrand playing a crucial role in bolstering false charges against the president during the Russiagate scare.
