Did Trump Try To Cover Up Russian Election Interference By Stealing Classified Binder?

[Tom of Temecula]

With Trump accused of stealing classified documents and running for president again in 2024, news about the potential theft of a highly classified binder containing collected intelligence on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is especially relevant. CNN reported:

The binder contained 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, sources tell CNN. The intelligence was so sensitive that lawmakers and congressional aides with top secret security clearances were able to review the material only at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where their work scrutinizing it was itself kept in a locked safe.

Trump issued an order declassifying most of the binder. Declassified copies were made to send to right-wing journalists, but the White House demanded redactions, all of the copies had to be recovered, and the binder was never released. Then the sensitive raw intelligence vanished into thin air.

It was last seen with former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows also known as the guy who was reportedly burning documents related to the 1/6 attack.

https://www.thedailypoliticususa.com/p/did-trump-try-to-cover-up-russian

[gab13by13]

1. WTF,

We already know that Russia interfered in the election. Just because the MSM repeats right wing propaganda doesn't change the facts.

Robert Mueller indicted, convicted or got guilty pleas from Paul Manafort, 13 Russian Nationals, 3 Russian companies. 12 Russian GRU officers. Konstantin Kilimnik.

This latest revelation only confirms that Russia interfered.

[mopinko]

2. compiling a hit list?

heard this story a while back. i assumed then it was about finding out who snitched, and getting retribution.

[Walleye]

3. It contained sources and methods of CIA, knowledge, he could've turned the whole thing over to Putin for all we know

Seems he loved nothing better than giving classified spy information to the Russians

[FarPoint]

4. My gut feeling is it is a trumpian thing to do....

I would place money down on this action....

[bluestarone]

5. No doubt in my mind!! Plus

They are STILL interfering as we speak! We ARE under attack daily from them and our own congress. Democracy is being given away by our own republicons !! So fucking SAD!

[mountain grammy]

6. Yes, and I must add

duhhhhhhhhh! he started on day 1.. January 20, 2017

[Fla Dem]

7. Oh I think that binder went right to Putin or at least a copy.

[FemDemERA]

8. Is this the binder that

Cassidy Hutchinson wrote about in her book “Enough”?

[bucolic_frolic]

9. prima facie case for obstruction

[sellitman]

10. It's for the money

Everything he does is to line his pockets.

Everything.

[onecaliberal]

11. Where the fuck is DOJ?

[Kid Berwyn]

12. pee-resident Trump fired most everyone investigating his ties to Russia.

Trump FIRED entire FBI counterespionage team a few years back:

Trump’s Top Targets in the Russia Probe Are Experts in Organized Crime

Some of President Trump’s favorite targets in the Russia probe have spent their careers in the Justice Department and the FBI investigating organized crime and money laundering, particularly as they pertain to Russia.

NATASHA BERTRAND
The Atlantic, AUG 30, 2018

Bruce Ohr. Lisa Page. Andrew Weissmann. Andrew McCabe. President Donald Trump has relentlessly attacked these FBI and Justice Department officials as dishonest “Democrats” engaged in a partisan “witch hunt” led by the special counsel determined to tie his campaign to Russia. But Trump’s attacks have also served to highlight another thread among these officials and others who have investigated his campaign: their extensive experience in probing money laundering and organized crime, particularly as they pertain to Russia.

snip...

Trump’s latest obsession is with Bruce Ohr, a career Justice Department official who spent years investigating Russian organized crime and corruption—an expertise he shared with another Trump target named Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence operative who provided valuable intelligence on Russia to the State Department and the FBI’s Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force prior to authoring the Trump-Russia dossier in 2016. Ohr and Steele met in 2007, according to The New York Times, and stayed in touch as a result of their shared interests and mutual respect. Trump has tweeted about Ohr nearly a dozen times this month alone, complaining about his relationship with Steele and Ohr’s wife’s past work for Fusion GPS—the opposition-research firm that hired Steele in 2016 to research Trump’s Russia ties.

snip...

Trump’s fixation with seeing Ohr ousted from the Justice Department could be perceived as yet another attempt to undermine the credibility of the people who have investigated him. It could also be interpreted as an attack on someone with deep knowledge of the shady characters Trump and his cohort have been linked to, including Semion Mogilevich, the Russian mob boss, and Oleg Deripaska, a Russian aluminum magnate close to Putin who did business with Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. (Incidentally, another Manafort associate, the Ukrainian billionaire Dmitry Firtash, admitted that he only managed to be in business because Mogilevich allowed him to be, according to a leaked 2008 State Department cable.) Ohr was involved in banning Deripaska from the U.S. in 2006, due to his alleged ties to organized crime and fear that he would try to launder money into American real estate. Nearly a decade later, Ohr and the FBI sought Deripaska’s help in taking down overseas criminal syndicates.

Snip...

The president has denied having any business ties to Russia, and his dream of building a Trump Tower Moscow never materialized. But his links to Russian oligarchs and mobsters from the former Soviet Union have been documented: Millions of dollars from the former Soviet Union flowed into Trump’s developments and casinos throughout the 1990s, as the journalist Craig Unger has chronicled, as oligarchs looked for a place to hide their money in the West. The Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was once known as a hot spot for Brooklyn mobsters associated with the Russian Mafia, and quickly became the “favorite East Coast destination” of the top Russian mob boss Vyacheslav Ivankov, according to the 2000 book Red Mafiya: How the Russian Mob Has Invaded America. It was also repeatedly cited by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network for having inadequate money-laundering controls.

Continues...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/trumps-top-targets-in-the-russia-probe-are-experts-in-organized-crime/569056/

Never forget: as PRESIDENT Trump targeted the FBI Witch Hunters who were tracking Putin and his Mafiya.

[dalton99a]

16. +1

[dflprincess]

13. Tom Hartmann just mentioned a trip Rand Paul made to Moscow

Where he admitted taking documents to Putin that Trump wanted him to have.. This apparently happened in 2018 but Trump has been funneling documents to Putin for a long time.

[pwb]

14. Probably

Good post. Thank you.

[redqueen]

15. Obviously. nt

[Chakaconcarne]

17. Let me guess, Obama stole them so the truth about Russia couldn't come out.

[Scrivener7]

18. Yes.

[wiggs]

19. Does govt make copies of such things. Wouldn't make sense to try to cover up info if there are more

copies.

Still...with this bunch if you assume the worst you're closer to the truth than if you give the benefit of the doubt.

[reACTIONary]

20. Bingo! Yes it does...

... there wasn't anything in that binder that is not in a computer file at the CIA. The whole premise of this thread - that you can effect a coverup by stealing or destroying a binder - is faulty.