The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Kash Patel, has revealed that a highly classified attachment to special prosecutor John Durham’s “RussiaGate” report was recently discovered hidden in a secret room at the FBI headquarters.
This attachment was declassified and made public by Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee from Iowa, on Thursday (July 31st).
The declassified attachment reveals more information from Durham’s report, including references to the referral of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign activities, which are relevant to the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion allegations. It also mentions the threat of foreign government interference in elections and the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) surveillance application regarding former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.
Grassley stated in a declaration that the FBI had failed to adequately review the intelligence information they possessed regarding these allegations.
The disclosure of this document is the latest among a series of documents related to the origins of the RussiaGate investigation being made public.
Earlier this month, a declassified House Intelligence report released by National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard indicated that the RussiaGate allegations were based on only one classified piece of evidence, and it was just “an incomplete, vague, and unverifiable sentence fragment from a shoddy report.”
Patel posted on social media platform X, stating that the contents of the document show that Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign team had plotted to frame her political opponent Trump, fabricating the false allegations of RussiaGate.
He described the situation as a “shameful event” that Trump and the entire country should not have to endure such political manipulation, emphasizing that this is just the beginning of uncovering the truth, and the FBI will continue to spare no effort in revealing the truth.
Patel also mentioned that thousands of other documents were found in the secret room, with related investigations still ongoing.
Durham was appointed in 2020 by then-Attorney General William Barr to investigate the actions by the federal government regarding the Trump-Russia collusion allegations.
In his 2023 report, Durham stated that no evidence was found of collusion between Trump and Russia. He also criticized the FBI for its “severely mishandled” investigation into the allegations, attributing some of the investigative bias to personal opposition to Trump’s candidacy.
He noted that at the outset of the investigation named “Crossfire Hurricane,” the US government and intelligence community seemingly did not possess any concrete evidence to prove collusion between Trump and Russia. “Crossfire Hurricane” was the FBI’s code name for the investigation into the Trump campaign activities.
The report stated that the FBI “heavily relied on investigative leads supplied or funded (directly or indirectly) by Trump’s political opponents.”
Additionally, a review ordered by CIA Director John Ratcliffe found that some internal analysts within the agency strongly questioned the allegations, including those from the so-called “Steele dossier,” which was funded by Hillary’s campaign team.
In a CIA memorandum released on July 2nd, Ratcliffe pointed out that the drafters of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) and several senior CIA officials, including two senior leaders responsible for Russian affairs, vehemently opposed including the “Steele dossier” in the report, viewing its content as not meeting basic intelligence standards.
The memorandum highlighted that the Deputy Director responsible for CIA analysis had warned then-Director John Brennan that including the dossier in any form in the assessment could “undermine the credibility of the entire report.”
However, Brennan directed to retain the dossier in the assessment, stating, “My final conclusion is that this information deserves to be included in the report.”
Former President Barack Obama and several top officials of his administration, including Brennan and former National Intelligence Director James Clapper, have publicly denied allegations that they deliberately targeted Trump for political reasons.
Furthermore, Patel had previously mentioned during an interview with podcast host Joe Rogan in June about the discovery of hidden documents, describing finding a room “filled with documents and hard drives that no one had ever seen or heard of before.”
Patel stated, “Imagine me, as the FBI Director and a figure related to the previous ‘RussiaGate’ incident, just arriving at the Bureau and discovering a room hidden by people like Comey (James Comey), unknown to the public—filled with documents and computer hard drives that no one had seen or heard of—they locked it, blocked the entrance, and said, ‘No one will find this place.'”
The original article titled “Patel: Thousands of Documents Found in FBI Back Room” was published on the English version of the “Epoch Times” website.