A Binder Is Missing

Still missing from what has been recovered of Donald Trump’s document grab when he left the presidency is a binder of classified documents. I would not assemble a group of classified documents into a binder, especially mixed with unclassified but likely accountable documents, although I think there are no regulations against it.

CNN has quite a long story about the missing binder. If I recall correctly, Donald Trump, a few years back, was raving about having proof, documentary proof, that the RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA investigation was fake. Back when Robert Mueller was doing his investigation? That seems to have been this binder.

CNN describes the binder as containing “raw Russian intelligence.” They tell us some of the things in the binder.

• “raw intelligence the US and its NATO allies collected on Russians and Russian agents, including sources and methods that informed the US government’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help Trump win the 2016 election”
• “The Russian intelligence was just a small part of the collection of documents in the binder, described as being 10 inches thick and containing reams of information about the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.”
• A GOP report commissioned by Devin Nunes scrutinizing the intelligence on Russia
• Tthe FBI’s problematic foreign intelligence surveillance warrants on Carter Page
• Interview notes with Christopher Steele, author of the infamous dossier on Trump and Russia
• FBI reports from a confidential human source related to the Russia investigation
• Internal FBI and DOJ text messages and emails
• Other stuff.

Trump’s intention was to declassify the material in the binder.

The day before leaving office, Trump issued an order declassifying most of the binder’s contents, setting off a flurry of activity in the final 48 hours of his presidency. Multiple copies of the redacted binder were created inside the White House, with plans to distribute them across Washington to Republicans in Congress and right-wing journalists. [emphasis added – CKR]

After some copies had been sent out, the White House lawyers required further redactions, and aides scrambled to get the copies back. The article does not say they were fully successful. I can tell you a story about how that works from back in the early days of copying machines. It does not work well.

One copy of the unredacted material is known to have gone missing.

If Trump declassified the material, why was some of it redacted? Probably to protect people whose role in the collection might be disclosed. Means of collection would also be redacted, because that information would end those routes for intelligence. The people might be put in danger as well. In general, that kind of thing means just don’t declassify the document. The information itself can be a clue to means of collection.

“Any further declassification would reveal sensitive intelligence collection techniques, damage foreign partner relations, jeopardize United States Intelligence Community equities, potentially violate court orders limiting the dissemination of FISA information … (and) endanger confidential human sources,” a top FBI official wrote to White House officials, according to a source who read portions of the letter to CNN.

Cassidy Hutchinson, the aide to Mark Meadows who testified to the January 6 Committee and also wrote a book, thinks that Meadows took the binder home. Meadows says, through a lawyer, that he didn’t. For some time, Hutchinson says, Meadows had the binder in his office safe.

The documents in the binder must have been cherrypicked for Trump’s attempt to show himself innocent of Russian influence. Ten inches is not very much of what must be the full file the FBI and other government agencies hold on that subject. The Trump camp has already made a lot of the FBI surveillance documents on Carter Page, and of course they have hated the raw intelligence from Christopher Steele that circulated around Washington before being published by BuzzFeed.

Raw intelligence, as demonstrated by the Steele dossier, is often incorrect or misleading. There must be a lot of it in government files on Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election, and bits and pieces likely can be assembled to “prove” almost anything. Donald Rumsfeld did the same sort of thing in setting up his own intelligence shop to review raw intelligence justifying the Iraq War.

I have many questions. Were all the copies returned? Did anyone make copies of the copies? Who, precisely, assembled the binder? Probably some of the Nunes operatives, like Kash Patel, but it would be useful to know exactly who. If the documents in the binder were indeed declassified, however one defines that process, why haven’t Trump and his operatives spread it around? We have heard surprisingly little recently, and there have been outbursts on it in the past.

Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner