US Attorney General William Barr is expected to seek advice from the intelligence community on how best to declassify data regarding what prompted the Russiagate probe – a prospect that has caused some panic among its proponents.
The attorney general will “do everything” to protect sensitive intelligence data and would thus take suggestions from US intelligence officials as he plans to go on with the investigation of “corruption at the FBI and the DOJ,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, told NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’.
“We expect that the attorney general will consult with them on matters that he needs that guidance and advice from them,” she said. “Certainly they work in lock step on a number of things. I don’t see this to be any different.”
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump granted Barr authority to declassify materials related to what triggered the Russiagate investigation and ordered the heads of the intelligence agencies to cooperate with him on the matter.
Trump vowed to “ensure that all Americans learn the truth” about the probe. He also repeatedly stated since April that he planned to declassify “everything.” Such a prospect apparently did not sit well with some parts of the US political establishment and the mainstream media who have been previously eagerly promoting the Russiagate narrative and demanded that the Mueller report, which found no collusion, be declassified.
Both the New York Times and the Washington Post rushed to publish articles which argued that Barr’s investigation would pose a risk to some important CIA assets, in Russia in particular. The Washington Post, especially, seemed to be unable to simply let the ‘Russian meddling’ narrative go as it said in its piece that the attorney general “threatens to expose US intelligence sources and could distort the FBI and the CIA’s roles in investigating Russian interference in the 2016 elections.”
Prominent Democrat Russiagaters did not trail far behind either. Mark Warner (D-Virginia), the deputy head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was decidedly quick to condemn the fact that Trump gave “sweeping declassification powers” to an attorney general, who allegedly already showed that he “has no problem selectively releasing information in order to mislead the American people.”
The House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff (D-California) even said in his tweet that the disclosure would somehow help Trump to prevent the “public from learning the truth about his obstruction of justice” and would be conducive to information “cover up.”
Notably, just weeks ago, the Democrats called for a vote to hold Barr in contempt of Congress after the Justice Department refused to hand them over an unredacted copy of the Mueller report on the supposed collusion between the Trump election campaign and Russia.
The nearly-three-year-long investigation – beginning with FBI surveillance in 2016 and ending with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s submission of his report in April this year – failed to turn up conclusive evidence of wrongdoing by Trump. The latest developments have seemingly put some of the US intelligence agencies somewhat on the defensive.
While Barr said he believes “spying did occur” on the Trump campaign, the FBI Director Christopher Wray told a Senate panel “spying” would not be “the term he would use” and suggested referring to his agency’s actions as instead.