Politics

Lindsey Graham Says He Will Advise AG Barr On How To Release Trump-Russia Documents

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Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said Monday he will meet with Attorney General William Barr during the week to discuss how to release documents he said will paint an “ugly and damning” picture of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign.

Republicans have pressed for the declassification of a slew of FBI and Justice Department documents related to the Russia probe, including FBI interview transcripts known as 302s. Republicans have said some of the information shows the FBI misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court by relying on the unverified Steele dossier to obtain wiretaps against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

“I’m going to meet the attorney general this week to talk to him about how to best tell the story. I don’t want people to conjecture as to what happened,” Graham told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “I want you to read it.”

“I want you to see all the 302s that we possibly can give to you. I want you to see the full [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] warrant application. I want to release the transcripts of the confidential informants talking to Papadopoulos,” he said.

Republicans have also recently pushed for the release of transcripts of former Trump adviser George Papadopoulos’s conversations with Stefan Halper, an alleged FBI informant.

President Donald Trump appeared poised earlier in 2019 to begin classifying many of the documents, but he ceded control over the process May 23 to Barr. Trump’s order granted Barr the authority to declassify the Russia documents as he saw fit. Barr also appointed U.S. attorney John Durham to lead an inquiry into federal government agencies’ activities involving the Trump campaign.

The Durham probe is operating alongside a Justice Department inspector general’s investigation into the FBI’s surveillance of Carter Page.

“I think it’s going to be really damning and ugly, and people did some really bad things that are dangerous for the country,” Graham said of the eventual release of the documents.

He also predicted the information will receive a small fraction of the coverage of what former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report received.

“It will be 10% of the coverage that the Mueller report got — it’s a shame.”