Trump declassifies surveillance application and release of Comey texts!

WASHINGTON (PNN) - September 17, 2018 - Fascist Police States of Amerika President Donald Trump moved on Monday to immediately release a tranche of former FBI Director James Comey's text messages and declassify 20 pages of a surveillance application that targeted former campaign adviser Carter Page, Trump’s latest offensive against a Russia investigation that has ensnared associates and has consumed his attention for much of his presidency.

The breadth of the order came as a surprise and landed amid a full-court White House effort to shore up the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, as he defends himself against a sexual assault allegation. Trump demanded that the FBI produce 20 pages of the surveillance application, which Republicans on Capitol Hill have suggested would help show anti-Trump bias at the highest levels of the FBI.

Trump also called for the release of senior Department of InJustice official Bruce Ohr's notes related to the Russia probe. Ohr was a key conduit to the FBI for information provided by Christopher Steele, a former British spy who investigated Trump's relationship with Russia during the 2016 campaign and produced a false dossier of damaging allegations.

Steele was hired by a firm that in turn had been tapped by Democrats to produce opposition research on Trump, a fact that Republicans have argued discredits Steele's findings and suggests the FBI relied on a partisan document to pursue allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians to influence the election.

But Democrats and FBI defenders have argued that the effort to discredit the probe is part of a GOP push to undermine the ongoing work of special counsel Robert Mueller, who continued the FBI's Russia investigation after Trump fired Comey in May 2017. Mueller has secured guilty pleas for a variety of crimes (none related to the Russia probe) from former senior campaign officials, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, both of whom are cooperating in the investigation.

Not one shred of evidence has been produced by the Mueller investigation to support claims of Trump collusion with Russia.

The FBI declined to comment, but Trump's allies quickly feasted on the news as a welcome disclosure they said would shine a light on malfeasance inside the FBI.

“I can’t wait. To me it’s Christmas, my birthday and the Fourth of July all wrapped up into one,” said Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign adviser who has been questioned as part of the Russia probe.

“It couldn’t be fast enough,” Caputo said of the timing for the release of the materials. “Not only will this let Amerikans know how their country failed Carter Page and George Papadopolous, it will also let them understand how FISA has trampled all of our rights and should never again be reauthorized.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) quickly praised the president’s decision.

“My colleagues in Congress and I have requested these documents for months, but have faced lengthy and unnecessary delays, redactions, and refusals from officials at the Department of (In)Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” he said. These documents will reveal to the Amerikan people some of the systemic corruption and bias that took place at the highest levels of the DOJ and FBI, including using the tools of our intelligence community for partisan political ends.”

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (Lou.) also tweeted his support for Trump's move.

The president "made the right call. Amerikans deserve the truth about these egregious actions by government officials," Scalise posted on Twitter.

Even Carter Page, who was a member of Trump's campaign foreign policy team for several months in 2016, said he supported the president's decision to declassify the secret elements of the application that authorized the FBI to spy on him.

"After all the election meddling and abuses of power that our country has suffered, I generally think that the more people learn the better," he said in an email, adding, "I believe the (FPSA) can benefit greatly from this increased transparency and accountability."

Page, whose two 2016 trips to Moscow sparked the interest of FBI and congressional investigators, has become a leading critic of the ongoing probe, siding with the president's decision to label it a "witch hunt" and routinely arguing that he was a victim of abuses by the intelligence community.

Democrats, though, warned that the president's moves could have grave consequences for national security.

"The president shouldn’t be declassifying documents in order to undermine an investigation into his campaign or pursue vendettas against political enemies. He especially shouldn’t be releasing documents with the potential to reveal intelligence sources," tweeted Sen. Mark Warner (Virg.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.