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Grenell Dumps Trove of Russia, Flynn Docs on Way Out of DNI

On his way out the door as acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell declassified a slew of new Russia probe documents, including transcripts of phone calls that then-incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak had in December 2016, Fox News reports. During the transition to the Trump administration, Flynn’s calls with the former […]
grenell

On his way out the door as acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell declassified a slew of new Russia probe documents, including transcripts of phone calls that then-incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak had in December 2016, Fox News reports.

During the transition to the Trump administration, Flynn’s calls with the former Russian ambassador Kislyak were surveilled, and then information about the calls was leaked. In response to growing public pressure, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., asked Grenell publicly last week to declassify those phone calls.

Grenell did so Tuesday. He also completed the declassification review of other documents that could shed light on the origins of the Russia probe.

According to a senior intelligence official, one of these documents is “very significant in understanding how intelligence was manipulated to support launching the Russia investigation,” reports Fox News.

But whether the public ever gets to see these documents will be up to John Ratcliffe, who was sworn in as Director of National Intelligence on Tuesday.

Grenell previously declassified a list of Obama officials who requested the unmasking of Flynn during the presidential transition period. On the list of high-ranking officials that requested the unmasking were then-Vice President Joe Biden, then-FBI Director James Comey, then-CIA Director John Brennan, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power.

Earlier this month, Grenell had cleared more than 6,000 pages of transcripts of interviews from the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation. The transcripts, which Schiff released, showed that top Obama officials had told the Committee they knew of no “empirical evidence” of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election.

Grenell, who was simultaneously serving as U.S. ambassador to Germany,  also declassified more than three dozen previously redacted footnotes from the Department of Justice inspector general’s report that found there were “serious problems” with the dossier sources the intelligence community used during the Russia investigation.

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