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Meadows and Trump planned to hand over an FBI file to a conservative journalist, according to the NYT.
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They reportedly rushed to get a series of redactions on the dossier, and Trump declassified it, the paper said.
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The plan was scrapped as DOJ officials warned that releasing the file could violate privacy laws, The Times said.
In the final days of his presidency, then-President Donald Trump approved Mark Meadows’ plan to get a series of editorial boards approved for a file containing FBI information so that it could be released and handed over to a sympathetic journalist, according to The New York Times.
According to The Times, former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows had Trump’s blessing to seek the declassification of the folder of undisclosed information about the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
Crossfire Hurricane, the code name for the FBI investigation into alleged links between Russian officials and Trump associates, became the Mueller investigation in 2017.
The folder describes the FBI’s methods of investigation. It featured a series of text messages between two former FBI officials, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who were disdainful of Trump, according to The Times. The hundreds of messages sent in the run-up to the 2016 election included a description of Trump as an “idiot”.
Meadows reportedly dismissed concerns that releasing the folder could put the FBI at risk, saying Trump wanted the reports to be made public, according to The Times.
Trump did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
And just three days before the end of his presidency, a series of editorials were agreed, and Trump declassified the rest of the map, the paper said.
Meadows planned to hand over the newly released folder to a conservative journalist, according to people familiar with the plan, The Times reported. It is not immediately clear who the journalist was or for which outlet they worked.
Meadows did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
The plan to hand over the folder was scrapped after Justice Department officials warned Meadows that spreading the text messages between Strzok and Page could violate privacy laws and lead to lawsuits, according to The Times.
The revelation comes from a deep dive into The New York Times about how Trump and his associates handled documents in the final days of his time in the White House.
Trump’s document handling is currently at the forefront following the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago and amid the Justice Department’s investigation into whether he has broken any laws.
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