A binder containing highly classified and sensitive information related to Russian election interference was last seen in the White House at the end of Trump’s presidency, raising alarms among intelligence officials that some of the most closely guarded national security secrets from the US and its allies could be exposed, sources told CNN.
Its disappearance, which has not been previously reported, was so concerning that intelligence officials briefed Senate Intelligence Committee leaders last year about the missing materials and the government’s efforts to retrieve them, the sources said.
In the two-plus years since Trump left office, the missing intelligence does not appear to have been found.
Here's what sources told CNN. The binder contains 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 intelligence was so sensitive, only lawmakers and congressional aides with top secret security clearances were able to read the material only at CIA headquarters, where their work scrutinizing it was kept in a locked safe.
It was last seen at the White House during Trump’s final days in office. Trump ordered it brought there so he could declassify a host of documents related to the FBI’s Russia investigation. Mark Meadows directed a group of Republican aides working to redact the most sensitive information so it could be declassified and released publicly.
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. But the raw intelligence on Russia was among its most sensitive classified materials, and top Trump administration officials repeatedly tried to block the former president from releasing the documents.
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.
Instead, copies initially sent out were frantically retrieved at the direction of White House lawyers demanding additional redactions.
As my colleague Scarce notes: for many of us, it's been clear for years that Trump and the rest of his band of crooks should be sitting in prison by now. This latest revelation will do nothing to assuage many of that belief. And of course, the last person seen with the binder - so secret it was kept in a locked safe at CIA headquarters - was Trump's chief-of-staff, Mark Meadows.
Oh well! These things happen when a narcissistic psychopath has been placed in the Oval Office!
