On Monday, Donald Trump ordered the Justice Department to declassify highly sensitive materials related to an ongoing investigation into his own campaign and administration. Specifically, the president demanded the release of a variety of classified documents related to the FISA warrant application that the FBI submitted to monitor Carter Page; all FBI reports of interviews with senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr (who communicated with former British spy and “dodgy dossier” author, Christopher Steele); and every text message that James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr ever sent about the Russia investigation. The president stipulated that said text messages were to be made public “without redaction,” ostensibly ordering the Justice Department to disclose sensitive intelligence sources and methods if that is what full transparency requires.
This was an audacious exercise of Executive authority, even by Trump’s formidable standards. Not only was the president interfering in an active investigation (in which he has a blatant conflict of interest), he was also potentially jeopardizing the security of American intelligence assets, and/or the comfort that foreign intelligence agencies have in sharing their secrets with the United States. A wide array of intelligence experts and officials voiced their opposition to the move. The Justice Department — which did not receive advance instructions detailing exactly what it was expected to release — immediately signaled its intention to slow-walk the request.