FBI Director Kash Patel has submitted extensive declassified documents to Congress concerning the bureau’s ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ investigation, which focused on unfounded claims of collusion between Trump and Russia, following an executive order from President Donald Trump that mandated their declassification. Nearly 700 pages of these documents, titled the ‘Crossfire Hurricane Redacted Binder’ and dated April 9, 2025, have also been exclusively acquired by Just the News. This action by Trump and Patel is linked to a March executive order aimed at finalizing the declassification of records associated with the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation—an initiative that had been obstructed by Trump’s own Justice Department in January 2021 during the concluding days of his first term.
This development follows four years of opposition from the Biden administration’s DOJ and FBI, under the leadership of former Attorney General Merrick Garland and ex-FBI Director Christopher Wray, who consistently declined to release the documents. The FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, which targeted both then-candidate and later President Trump in 2016 and beyond, was initiated based on unverified allegations of collusion with the Russian government. It was subsequently criticized as a politically motivated endeavor by certain factions within the intelligence and law enforcement sectors to undermine Trump’s presidency.
Trump’s March order, titled ‘Immediate Declassification of Materials Related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation,’ references his previous, unsuccessful attempt to declassify the same materials on his last full day in office during his first term. ‘I have determined that all of the materials referenced in the Presidential Memorandum of January 19, 2021 … are no longer classified,’ he stated while announcing the order. Trump’s January 2021 order mentioned a binder of materials related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, which he claimed was provided to the White House by the Justice Department at his request.In a memo dated 2021, Trump stated that he had decided to declassify the materials to the fullest extent possible. However, the FBI, led by Wray, indicated in mid-January 2021 that it had pinpointed specific passages that it deemed essential to withhold from public access. At that time, Trump expressed his willingness to accept the redactions suggested by the FBI for ongoing classification and instructed the Justice Department to declassify and release the remaining documents.
After Trump departed from the White House, the Justice Department obstructed his final request for declassification, thereby preventing the release of those documents. A memo from Mark Meadows, who was the White House Chief of Staff at the time, was sent on the morning of January 20, 2021, stating that the Justice Department was required to publish the binder of declassified documents concerning the flawed Trump-Russia investigation, contingent upon a Privacy Act review. Nevertheless, the DOJ under Garland and the FBI under Wray did not disclose the records, despite Trump’s declassification directive and Meadows’ last-minute instruction.
A two-year investigation conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller from the Justice Department found no evidence of criminal collusion between Trump and Russia. Furthermore, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz highlighted significant shortcomings in the FBI’s investigation, particularly its dependence on a dossier that he characterized as having a ‘central and essential’ role in the politically motivated surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. This dossier was created by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, who was commissioned by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which had been hired by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign through attorney Marc Elias of Perkins Coie.
A subsequent report by Special Counsel John Durham concluded that neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appeared to have any concrete evidence of collusion in their records.Durham stated that the FBI overlooked the reality that investigators were unable to substantiate any significant claims made in the Steele dossier at any point before, during, or after the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Nevertheless, notable Democrats, including current Senator Adam Schiff from California, persisted in disseminating these unfounded allegations through the media.
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