Politics

Senate Committees Release A Treasure Trove Of Trump-Russia Documents

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Two Senate committees on Thursday released 430-pages of FBI, Justice Department and State Department records related to the government’s investigation of Donald Trump and his campaign advisers.

The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs and Senate Finance Committees released the records (FBI, DOJ and State Department) ahead of a hearing held Thursday related to Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign.

The documents include text messages exchanged between several FBI officials who oversaw Crossfire Hurricane, including then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, counterintelligence official Peter Strzok, FBI attorney Lisa Page, and deputy assistant director for counterintelligence, Jennifer Boone.

The batch of records also includes emails exchanged between the Crossfire Hurricane team regarding a variety of investigative matters, including the infamous Steele dossier.

The Republican chairman of the Senate committees began requesting the records earlier this year.

The committees also released less-redacted copies of memos that Christopher Steele submitted to the State Department from 2014 to 2016, before he began work on the now-infamous Trump dossier.

The Daily Caller News Foundation and Judicial Watch had sued the State Department for the same documents, though they were almost entirely redacted. The unredacted versions released on Thursday provide details of information that Steele provided State Department officials regarding Russia and Ukraine.

The FBI and Justice Department batches include notes that government officials took regarding their interactions with Steele, a former MI6 officer who investigated the Trump campaign on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC.

One document is a summary of an FBI interview conducted with Steele in September 2017 as part of the special counsel’s probe.

A report from the Justice Department’s inspector general severely undercut the credibility of Steele’s information. It also criticized the FBI for relying on information from Steele as part of Crossfire Hurricane without first verifying it.