A former high-ranking Trump administration official criticized a report that said the Justice Department is potentially investigating whether he disclosed classified information.
Kash Patel told One America News Network this week that Washington Post columnist David Ignatius writing about the alleged inquiry is “the height of hypocrisy,” considering how a key element of the Trump-Russia investigation, the FBI’s targeting of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, came to light in a column the journalist wrote more than four years ago.
“He was the same individual who knowingly published classified information back in 2016, 2017 to kick off the Russiagate conspiracy, and then I spent the next two years combating it to make sure that the truth came out, and now he writes an article that may possibly contain even more classified information accusing me, the lead investigator, of possibly being under investigation,” Patel said.
“I think that is the height of hypocrisy and careless journalism, and that is why the American public cannot stand the mainstream media,” he added.
The alleged inquiry into Patel was revealed in a column last Friday by Ignatius, who said Patel is “now facing [a] Justice Department investigation for possible improper disclosure of classified information, according to two knowledgeable sources who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe.” He did not provide evidence or many details. Also, Patel did not respond to requests for comment, Ignatius wrote.
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In January, the Justice Department quietly closed without charges the investigation into leaks of likely classified information about intercepted phone calls between Flynn and a Russian envoy to the press. This had been reported by none other than Ignatius in early 2017.
Michael Sherwin, the then-acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, signed off on closing the inquiry into the disclosure of the December 2016 calls between former President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at the recommendation of prosecutors in Washington, D.C., a person familiar with the investigation told the New York Times. The report said the inquiry, code-named Operation Echo, looked into Obama administration officials with access to the sensitive contents of the discussions but “ultimately found no wrongdoing.”
After just a few weeks on the job, Flynn resigned as White House national security adviser in February 2017 amid the controversy that followed Ignatius reporting in the Washington Post about his December 2016 contacts with Kislyak. Flynn fought to dismiss the government’s case against him throughout 2020 after he pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to investigators about those conversations. The U.S. government intercepted Flynn’s discussions with Kislyak, after which now-fired FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI agent Joseph Pientka interviewed him on Jan. 24, 2017. The Justice Department dropped its case against Flynn last year, and he received a pardon from Trump on the day before Thanksgiving.
The New York Times reported in April 2020 that now-special counsel John Durham was looking into media leaks, which dominated the Trump transition period and the early days of the Trump administration. He was reportedly looking into a Jan. 12, 2017, article in the Washington Post by Ignatius, which said that Flynn “cultivates close Russian contacts” and cited a “senior U.S. government official,” who revealed that Flynn had talked to Kislyak on Dec. 29, 2016, the same day former President Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian officials. Ignatius raised the possibility Flynn had violated the Logan Act, a rarely enforced law, which some Obama officials considered using against Flynn.
A follow-up article by the Washington Post on Feb. 9, 2017, revealed likely classified details from Flynn’s monitored calls with Kislyak, citing “nine current and former officials.”
During his confirmation hearing, now-Attorney General Merrick Garland declined to promise to allow Durham to finish his work and to make his impending report public.
Patel was asked on OANN if he still held out hope for Durham’s inquiry.
“I have some hope, it is hope as you say, and if and when the Durham report is produced, to have it not released to the American people, that would be the epitome of the politicization of the Department of Justice and the FBI as they did in 2016 to President Trump,” Patel said.
Toward the end of the Trump administration, Patel last worked as chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller after serving as a National Security Council staffer and a top aide to former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell.
Prior to joining the White House, Patel was an aide to Republicans when they controlled the House Intelligence Committee under then-Chairman Devin Nunes, assisting their own investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Democrats decried the GOP effort as a partisan scheme to shield Trump from special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry, which ultimately “did not establish” any criminal Trump-Russia conspiracy.
Patel helped author the 2018 memo on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act alleged abuses during the Russia investigation. Though hotly criticized by Democrats at the time, it was largely borne out as quite accurate by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report in 2019 and recent declassifications.
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The Republicans released their four-page memo in February 2018, finding British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier formed an essential part of the initial and all three renewal FISA applications against Trump campaign associate Carter Page, who has denied any wrongdoing and was never charged with a crime. The memo noted, among many things, that the Clinton campaign-funded origins of the Steele dossier were known to senior DOJ and FBI officials but excluded from the FISA applications and that DOJ official Bruce Ohr met with Steele throughout 2016 and relayed to the DOJ information about Steele’s anti-Trump bias.
Horowitz issued a report in December 2019 largely vindicating the “Nunes memo,” criticizing the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants against Page, for concealing potentially exculpatory information from the FISA court, and for the bureau’s reliance on the discredited Steele dossier, which played a “central and essential” role in the FBI’s decision seeking electronic surveillance.
