In Final Days, Trump Gave Up On Releasing Russiagate Files, Nunes Prober Says

[mystery-ak]

 In Final Days, Trump Gave Up On Releasing Russiagate Files, Nunes Prober Says

The House Intelligence Committee's Kash Patel said senior intelligence officials 'continuously impeded' their release – usually by slow-walking their reviews of the material.

By Aaron Maté
February 26, 2021

After four years of railing against “deep state” actors who, he said, tried to undermine his presidency, Donald Trump relented to U.S. intelligence leaders in his final days in office, allowing them to block the release of critical material in the Russia investigation, according to a former senior congressional investigator who later joined the Trump administration.

Kash Patel, whose work on the House Intelligence Committee helped unearth U.S. intelligence malpractice during the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane probe, said he does not know why Trump did not force the release of documents that would expose further wrongdoing. But he said senior intelligence officials “continuously impeded” their release – usually by slow-walking their reviews of the material. Patel said Trump’s CIA director, Gina Haspel, was instrumental in blocking one of the most critical documents.

Patel, who has seen the Russia probe’s underlying intelligence and co-wrote critical reports that have yet to be declassified, said new disclosures would expose additional misconduct and evidentiary holes in the CIA and FBI’s work.

“I think there were people within the IC [Intelligence Community], at the heads of certain intelligence agencies, who did not want their tradecraft called out, even though it was during a former administration, because it doesn’t look good on the agency itself,” Patel told RealClearInvestigations in his first in-depth interview since leaving government at the end of Trump’s term last month, having served in several intelligence and defense roles (full interview here).

Trump did not respond to requests seeking comment sent to intermediaries.

Although a Department of Justice inspector general’s report in December 2019 exposed significant intelligence failings and malpractice, Patel said more damning information is still being kept under wraps. And despite an ongoing investigation by Special Counsel John Durham into the conduct of the officials who carried out the Trump-Russia inquiry, it is unclear if key documents will ever see the light of day.

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https://thefederalist.com/2021/02/26/in-final-days-trump-gave-up-on-releasing-russiagate-files-nunes-prober-says/

[HoustonSam]

In Final Days, Trump Gave Up On Releasing Russiagate Files, Nunes Prober Says

The House Intelligence Committee's Kash Patel said senior intelligence officials 'continuously impeded' their release – usually by slow-walking their reviews of the material.

After four years of railing against “deep state” actors who, he said, tried to undermine his presidency, Donald Trump relented to U.S. intelligence leaders in his final days in office, allowing them to block the release of critical material in the Russia investigation, according to a former senior congressional investigator who later joined the Trump administration.

If this is true as written, then Trump is himself ultimately accountable.  He could have fired these people or, presumably, simply ordered the immediate de-classification and release.  Again, if this is true as written, that he did not is solely his own fault.