At the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, a binder containing highly classified material about Russian election meddling vanished, alarming intelligence officials that some of the most closely guarded national security secrets from the US and its allies might be compromised, sources familiar with the situation told CNN.
According to the sources, intelligence officials briefed Senate Intelligence Committee leaders last year about the missing materials and the government’s efforts to retrieve them because of the disappearance, which has not been previously reported.
It doesn’t seem like the missing intelligence has been discovered in the more than two years since Trump left office.
The US government’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to aid Trump in winning the 2016 election was based on sources and techniques found in the binder containing raw intelligence that the US and its NATO allies gathered on Russians and Russian agents, sources tell CNN.
The intelligence was so sensitive that only CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where lawmakers and congressional aides with top-secret security clearances could review it, could examine it themselves in a locked safe.
During the latter days of Trump’s presidency, the binder was last observed at the White House. To declassify a number of records about the FBI’s Russia investigation, the former president had ordered its delivery to that location. Republican aides, working under the direction of then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, went through the binder, removing the most sensitive material so it could be declassified and made public.
The binder, which was described as being 10 inches thick and holding reams of documents about the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia, included only a small portion of material related to Russian intelligence. However, the most sensitive classified materials were the raw intelligence on Russia, and senior officials in the Trump administration made repeated attempts to prevent the former president from making the documents public.
A flurry of activity occurred in the last 48 hours of Trump’s presidency after he issued an order declassifying most of the binder’s contents the day before he left office. The White House produced several redacted copies of the binder and intended to give them to right-wing journalists and Republicans in Congress in Washington.
Rather, copies that had been sent out at first were hastily retrieved because White House lawyers insisted on more redactions.
Meadows hurried to the Justice Department to hand-deliver a redacted copy for a final review just minutes before Joe Biden took office. Despite Trump’s declassification order, the Justice Department has not yet made all of the documents public years later. More copies that were redacted to differing degrees ended up at the National Archives.
However, a copy of the binder containing the raw, classified intelligence went missing uncensored in the hectic final hours of the Trump administration. Its disappearance and the circumstances surrounding it are still unknown.
US officials have consistently refused to confirm that any intelligence was missing or to discuss government efforts to find the binder.
The US official familiar with the matter claims that the FBI did not specifically seek out Russian intelligence when it obtained a search warrant for the former president’s home last year, and that the binder was not one of the classified items discovered during the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
The indictment of Trump in June for the improper handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago makes no mention of the binder or the missing Russian intelligence.
Regarding the whereabouts of the binder, one theory has surfaced.
One of Meadows’ top aides, Cassidy Hutchinson, stated in her memoir and during testimony before Congress that she thought Meadows brought home an unredacted copy of the binder. She claimed to have seen Meadows take it from the White House and that it had been kept in his safe.
According to transcripts made public last year, Hutchinson told the January 6 committee in closed-door testimony, “I am almost positive it went home with Mr. Meadows.”
However, Meadows’ attorney vehemently refutes any allegation that Meadows mismanaged any classified material while working at the White House, calling the notion that Meadows was accountable for any missing classified material “flat wrong.”
George Terwilliger, Meadows’ lawyer, said in a statement to CNN that his client “knew very well what had to be done in order to handle classified material properly and followed those guidelines.”Any such material that he handled or was in his possession has been treated accordingly and any suggestion that he is responsible for any missing binder or other classified information is flat wrong.” “Anyone or any organisation claiming that he is accountable for anything that has vanished lacks evidence and ought to proceed with extreme caution before levelling unfounded accusations.”
Trump’s allies have been pursuing the redacted binder in the years since he left office in order to make it publicly available. Earlier this year, they filed lawsuits against the National Archives and the Justice Department. In addition, as they get ready to defend Trump against allegations arising from attempts to rig the 2020 election, his attorneys are now requesting access to the classified intelligence from the 2016 election assessment.
Based on interviews with over a dozen sources with firsthand knowledge of the situation—all of whom asked to remain anonymous in order to discuss the delicate subject—this account details the classified binder’s journey to the White House, how its trail went cold after Trump left office, and the unanswered questions it raises
For this story, representatives from the National Archives, the CIA, the FBI, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment. A Senate Intelligence Committee spokesman declined to comment. Hutchinson’s attorney also chose not to respond. An inquiry for comment was not answered by a Trump spokesperson.
“A vault inside a vault” within the CIA
One of the most divisive battles then-President Trump fought behind the scenes has its roots in the missing binder. Trump attempted for years to declassify documents that he claimed would support his allegations that the FBI’s Russia investigation into his campaign was a fabrication, but he faced strong resistance from his own national security professionals.
In which the Capitol Building
CIA Who
Devin Nunes
What databases are there?
The history of the binder begins in 2018, when Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, under the direction of Chairman Devin Nunes, put together a classified report in which they claimed that the Obama administration had falsified evidence to support their assessment that Putin had assisted Trump in the 2016 election.
This highly classified intelligence from 2016 was examined by the GOP report, which questioned the intelligence community’s “tradecraft” and concluded that Putin and Russia were trying to help Trump’s campaign. A deal struck by House Republicans and the CIA required the committee to bring in a safe for its documents, which was subsequently placed inside a CIA vault. This arrangement led some officials to refer to the safe as a “turducken” or a “safe within a safe.”
Democratic and Republican sources diverged on the report’s main points. The report argued that senior Obama administration officials skewed the intelligence community assessment to exclude intelligence indicating that Russia actually wanted Hillary Clinton to win in 2016 while overemphasize the significance of intelligence indicating that Russia preferred Trump, according to GOP sources familiar with its details.
On the other hand, Democratic sources claim the Republican accusations were exaggerated. According to one source, the intelligence cited in the report demonstrated that Russia was actively trying to influence Trump and win the election, which was the exact opposite of what Republicans were saying.
The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, which rejected Nunes’ claims and declared that the 2016 assessment was a “sound intelligence product” with no political pressure on analysts to reach particular conclusions, supported the Democratic position in 2020.
After leaving Congress to take the helm of Trump’s media empire, Nunes stated in response to inquiries ridiculing CNN for emphasizing “secret Trump binders.”
Leaders in national security oppose
Trump and his allies sought to make public a number of documents related to the Russia investigation, among them Nunes’ 2018 report.
However, fearing the exposure of sources and techniques, Trump’s national security advisors, chief among them CIA Director Gina Haspel, fiercely opposed the report’s and other Russia documents’ public release. Haspel carried the disagreement with her throughout the Trump administration.
In private, Trump expressed his desire to obtain access to the GOP report. A person familiar with the conversation claims that during one exchange in October 2020, Trump recommended that he personally visit the CIA headquarters and demand access to it.
Ahead of the 2020 election, a few FBI and Russian-related documents and intelligence were declassified by acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell and his successor, John Ratcliffe, both Trump administration intelligence officials. However, the House GOP report was kept under wraps.
After the election, as he pushed for the release of additional information regarding the Russia investigation, Trump thought about firing Haspel. When the GOP report was being drafted in 2018, at least one Trump aide suggested Kash Patel, a former Nunes aide, to take Haspel’s place. Patel joined the Trump administration in 2019 and worked on the National Security Council before taking over as acting defence secretary’s chief of staff in the latter months of Trump’s presidency.
According to people familiar with the situation, in December 2020, Ratcliffe and then-Attorney General William Barr collaborated to convince Trump against declassifying at least some of the intelligence pertaining to Russia, claiming that doing so would jeopardise national security. Other current and former officials claim that after Barr left office, he and his office’s aides persisted in pressuring the FBI and other intelligence agencies to comply with Trump’s demands and release additional information.
Haspel, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone once made the hurried trip to Capitol Hill following the election to meet with congressional intelligence leaders regarding their serious worries that Trump would release the material, according to sources.
Enigmas reach the White House
Hutchinson testified before Congress on December 19, four days after Barr announced his resignation, Nunes met with Meadows at the White House to talk about declassifying records pertaining to the the FBI’s probe concerning Russia and the Trump campaign.
Sources claim that a copy of the GOP report was delivered to the White House eleven days later, along with a large binder full of documents about Russia and the FBI investigation. When they arrived at the White House, Hutchinson told the committee on January 6 that she had signed the documents.
According to Hutchinson, Meadows met with Republican staffers from the House Intelligence Committee and discussed the documents with then-White House Counsel Pat Cipollone over the course of the following few days.
According to Meadows’ book, which details his tenure as Trump’s chief of staff, Trump insisted on having the documents delivered to the White House. “I reviewed each page personally to ensure that the President’s declassification would not unintentionally reveal sources and procedures,” he wrote………………………
The contents of the binder included the GOP report examining the Russia intelligence as well as the FBI’s dubious 2017 foreign intelligence surveillance warrants on a Trump campaign adviser; interview notes with Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous dossier on Trump and Russia; FBI reports from a human source with access to the agency’s records; and internal emails and text messages from the FBI and DOJ, among other documents.
She testified that Meadows kept the version of the binder Hutchinson signed in her office safe, with the exception of times when congressional staffers worked on it.
“He desired to hold onto that one tightly. According to Hutchinson, he didn’t want the January 6 committee to know about that particular incident. I simply am aware, Mr. Meadows. I don’t think he knows how to operate a copy machine, but he wouldn’t have had that one copied unless he did it himself.
Hutchinson wrote about an incident in her book where Meadows asked her to get the binder and got upset when she told him it was in the safe.”I told you to make sure it was in your direct line of sight. “It should have been in your desk drawer,” Meadows said to her.
“Mark, this is not the place for classified documents in my desk drawer. It was kept in the lockbox.Hutchinson said that she told him, “You have nothing to worry about,”
More copies of the binder were produced at the White House after the committee assistants finished their suggested redactions, allowing it to be declassified and made public.
A disastrous launch
Top FBI officials, meanwhile, were working feverishly to safeguard the most critical information and minimise the harm caused by what they perceived to be insufficient redactions.
A top FBI official wrote to White House officials, according to a source who read portions of the letter to CNN, stating that “any further declassification would reveal sensitive intelligence collection techniques, damage foreign partner relations, jeopardise United States Intelligence Community equities, potentially violate court orders limiting the dissemination of FISA information… (and) endanger confidential human sources.”
A declassification order for a “binder of materials related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation” was issued by Trump on January 19, 2021.
The declassified documents were going to be distributed by the White House throughout Washington, including to conservative journalist John Solomon, who is allied with Trump. However, Solomon sued the Justice Department and National Archives earlier this year to gain access to the documents, but Trump’s order did not result in their release.
The colourful details of the last-minute scurry are revealed in his court filings.
Solomon says that Meadows invited him to the White House that evening on January 19 so they could go through several hundred pages of the declassified binder. Solomon’s employee was granted permission to depart the White House carrying the declassified documents in a paper bag.
Solomon’s lawyers stated in a court document last month that “Mr. Solomon’s staff began setting up a scanning operation for the complete set of documents to be released the next morning.” “However, while they were setting up the equipment, a call came through from the White House requesting that the documents, which were still under embargo, be returned. This was because the White House wanted to apply the Privacy Act to some additional redactions to unclassified information.”
According to Hutchinson’s book, on January 19, after 10:30 p.m., Cipollone instructed her to have Meadows get the binders that Solomon and a conservative columnist had received. “The Hurricane binders from Crossfire are a total bust. They still contain a lot of sensitive material, Hutchinson claims Cipollone informed her. “The White House needs those binders returned.” As in, right now.”
According to Hutchinson, the documents were picked up by a Secret Service agent in a Whole Foods grocery bag and returned the following morning, on January 20.
“How soon can we deliver this to the DOJ?”
Meadows hurried to the Justice Department early on January 20, the last day of the Trump administration, to turn over a copy of the binder that Trump had ordered declassified for a last examination.
Hutchinson informed the committee that Meadows hurriedly left the White House at some point that morning, between 11 and 11:30 a.m., to bring a copy of the binder to the Justice Department.
Hutchinson remembered Meadows asking, “How quickly can we get this to the DOJ?” to his security detail.
In addition, Meadows presented a memo directing the Justice Department to review the majority of the declassified documents Trump had released for privacy purposes.
In the memo, Meadows stated that she was returning the majority of the declassified document binder to the Department of Justice, including all that appear to be confidential. She also instructed the Department to expeditiously conduct a Privacy Act review under the standards that the Department of Justice would normally apply, redact material appropriately, and release the remaining material with redactions applied.have a potential to raise privacy concerns).”
In a court document, Solomon’s attorneys claim that Meadows “assured Mr Solomon that he would receive the updated binder.” But this never happened.
In her book, Hutchinson describes seeing Meadows enter his limo on January 19 with the “original Crossfire Hurricane binder tucked under his arm.” This is in reference to the unredacted version of the binder.
“How in the hell is Mark handling the Crossfire Hurricane binder that hasn’t been redacted?” Hutchinson remembered wondering as Meadows sped off.
Hutchinson said that Meadows’ safe was gone when she took one last look inside it before leaving the White House.
Hutchinson told the January 6 committee, “I don’t think that would have been something that he would have destroyed.” It never left our office to travel internally, and it was never returned. Most of the time, it was kept in our office safe.
Hutchinson’s story is disputed by Meadows’ lawyer Terwilliger, who claims that Meadows did not improperly handle any classified documents while working at the White House.
The search goes on.
There were several fronts in which the search for the binder persisted even after Trump left office.
Senate Intelligence Committee leaders were briefed by intelligence officials about the government’s efforts to retrieve the unredacted version of the binder containing raw Russian intelligence, sources told CNN, approximately a year after Trump left office.
Simultaneously, the declassified version of the binder that Meadows had brought to the Justice Department was being sought after by Trump’s allies.
Trump designated Solomon and Patel as his delegates to the National Archives in June 2022, granting them access to the former president’s files. Email exchanges between Solomon and Patel that were included in their lawsuit demonstrated how they attempted to obtain access to the binder as soon as they were designated as Trump’s delegates.
In the final days of his presidency, the President issued an order declassifying a binder containing records related to the Russia investigation. It’s roughly ten inches thick,” Solomon wrote to Gary Stern, general counsel of the Archives, in June 2022. “Every document that was declassified by his order and included in the binder should be duplicated, either digitally or on paper.”
Following lawsuits from conservative groups seeking documents from the investigation, the FBI released several hundred pages of heavily redacted internal records from its Russia investigation in February and March under the Freedom of Information Act.
In a June filing requesting the dismissal of Solomon’s lawsuit, the Justice Department stated that Meadows’ request for a Privacy Act review had been satisfied by the FBI’s document release, stating that it had “resulted in the posting of most of the binder” on the FBI’s FOIA website.
The FBI only released “a small part of the binder’s contents with substantial additional redactions,” Solomon retorted.
In an interview with Solomon last July, Meadows stated that he gave the documents to the Justice Department out of a “heavy caution.”
“We instructed them to go ahead and disseminate those declassified documents—I want to emphasise that they were declassified documents—to do a final redaction for some of that personal information,” Meadows stated. “Here we are a few years later, and we fully expected that they would do that, at most a few days.”
