National security experts acknowledge that President Trump has every right to tell his government to declassify selective portions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act application on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page, as well as “all FBI reports” prepared in connection with the wiretap warrant request.
But that doesn’t mean they have to like it.
“The release of FISAs like this is totally unprecedented. It is especially unprecedented considering that the FISAs have already gone through declassification review, and he is overruling the judgments of his subordinates to require expanded disclosure,” said David Kris, former assistant attorney general for national security during the Obama administration and the founder of Culper Partners consulting firm.
Kris told the Washington Examiner that though Trump does have the legal authority to declassify what he wants, he is doing it for the wrong reasons.
“His exercise of authority is tainted by a severe conflict of interest, as he is a subject of the investigation to which these FISAs pertain,” said Kris. “This is perhaps the signal feature of all of his worst actions — he seems assiduously to view and engage with everything through the straw-sized aperture of his own self-interest instead of the country’s best interest.”
Trump told his Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to initiate the “immediate declassification” of the documents last week. The order appeased Republican lawmakers who are trying to uncover bias in the government against Trump’s campaign.
The order upset the president’s opponents who say he is trying to undermine and distract from the investigation into possible collusion between his campaign and Russia, which is being led by special counsel Robert Mueller.
[Related: John Brennan hopes ‘individuals of conscience’ will block Trump’s declassification order]
On Twitter, Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that’s exactly why Trump wants them released.
“The President shouldn’t be declassifying documents in order to undermine an investigation into his campaign or pursue vendettas against political enemies,” said Warner. “He especially shouldn’t be releasing documents with the potential to reveal intelligence sources.”
He told reporters Tuesday morning about the declassification: “Be careful what you wish for.”
Dan Metcalfe, who worked as the Justice Department’s director of the Office of Information and Privacy under both Republican and Democratic presidents, also told the Washington Examiner the move is “unprecedented,” and predicted political repercussions.
“It’s hard to imagine that there won’t be. This entire presidential action is unprecedented, and ironically quite transparent,” said Metcalfe, adding that career staffers in the Justice Department’s National Security Division are likely “screaming bloody murder about this.”
The Justice Department and FBI “virtually never disclose any part of a FISA application. The Republican position is that this particular FISA information is needed to support its trumped up Mueller narrative,” said Metcalfe.
“I think he is thinking that if release this information it will support his narrative. I think the president definitely has the authority to do it under the law, but I think he is completely abusing that authority by doing it the way he is doing it,” said Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors, a public interest law firm specializing in national security law and information and privacy law.
Steven Aftergood, who directs the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy, told the Washington Examiner that Trump is using the documents in a damaging and political manner — and believes it is a possible set up for his own government.
“This episode highlights the unfortunate fact that classification, which is supposed to be about national security, has instead become a political battleground in which opposing sides jostle for advantage. So it will feed the familiar cycle of mutual vituperation,” said Aftergood,
And if the agencies do not immediately and fully declassify what he wants, “it looks like they are ‘resisting’ the president, even if they have valid national security concerns,” he said.
Speaking to Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday, former CIA Director John Brennan, who served under President Barack Obama, said it was “highly inappropriate and unethical for Mr. Trump to the take any action that pertains to the FBI criminal investigation of Russian collusion and cooperation with Russia during the election, of which Mr. Trump and close associates are subjects.”
“He certainly has the authority to do it, but I do think it’s highly inappropriate, and I think everybody who knows these issues feels similarly,” added Brennan, whose security clearance has been revoked by Trump.
Trump said on Twitter that the documents would show there Page was inappropriately wiretapped. “Really bad things were happening, but they are now being exposed,” Trump wrote. “Big stuff!”
On Tuesday in the Oval Office, Trump said he ordered the declassification because he wants “total transparency.”
“This is a witch hunt,” he said of the Russia investigation. “It’s a terrible witch hunt, and it’s hurt our country, and the things that have been found over the last couple of weeks about text messages back and forth are a disgrace to our nation. And I want transparency, and so does everybody else.”
A Justice Department spokesperson said the agency was already working with the ODNI to comply with the order.
“When the president issues such an order, it triggers a declassification review process that is conducted by various agencies within the intelligence community, in conjunction with the White House Counsel, to seek to ensure the safety of America’s national security interests,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus and a close ally of Trump, applauded the move.
“It’s time to get the full truth on the table so the American people can decide for themselves on what happened at the highest levels of their FBI and Justice Department,” he tweeted.
[New: FBI, DOJ expected to make redactions despite Trump’s order to declassify Russia documents: Report]
