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Grassley Request For Declassification - Feb 2018

WASHINGTON – The Federal Bureau of Investigation signed off on an unclassified version of the criminal referral by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham only after the White House declassified a House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) Majority memo largely based on the same underlying documents. Grassley is now calling on the FBI to update the classification of the referral to allow complete disclosure of important context from the documents on which it is based. “Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging. The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn’t secret, and it should not take dramatic steps by Congress and the White House to get answers that the American people are demanding. There are still many questions that can only be answered by complete transparency. That means declassifying as much of the underlying documents as possible,” Grassley said.

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40K views2 pages

Grassley Request For Declassification - Feb 2018

WASHINGTON – The Federal Bureau of Investigation signed off on an unclassified version of the criminal referral by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham only after the White House declassified a House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) Majority memo largely based on the same underlying documents. Grassley is now calling on the FBI to update the classification of the referral to allow complete disclosure of important context from the documents on which it is based. “Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging. The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn’t secret, and it should not take dramatic steps by Congress and the White House to get answers that the American people are demanding. There are still many questions that can only be answered by complete transparency. That means declassifying as much of the underlying documents as possible,” Grassley said.

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The Conservative Treehouse
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February 2, 2018

VIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION

The Honorable Christopher A. Wray The Honorable Rod J. Rosenstein


Director Deputy Attorney General
Federal Bureau of Investigation U.S. Department of Justice
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20535 Washington, D.C. 20530

Dear Director Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein:

Pursuant to Section 3.5 of Executive Order 13526, I am writing to formally demand a


Mandatory Declassification Review of the classified criminal referral Senator Graham and I sent
to the FBI and the Justice Department regarding Christopher Steele’s potential violations of 18
U.S.C. § 1001.1

On January 4, 2018, Senator Graham and I sent a classified memo to the Justice
Department and the FBI. The eight-page memo referred for further investigation materially
inconsistent statements reportedly made by Christopher Steele, the author of the anti-Trump
dossier funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign during the
2016 Presidential election. On January 19, 2018, an FBI Congressional liaison, Greg Brower,
sent a letter claiming that a few of the paragraphs marked as unclassified in our memo contained
classified information. A redacted copy of Mr. Brower’s letter is attached for reference.

As I explained in a speech on the Senate floor, the FBI’s claims mischaracterize and
misstate what those paragraphs actually say. Nonetheless, on January 29, I wrote to Director
Wray and Inspector General Horowitz, raising my objections to the FBI’s classification claims,
but attaching a further redacted version of the referral that addressed FBI’s concerns. On
February 2, 2018, Mr. Brower stated that the FBI had no concerns with the public release of that
further redacted version, which is attached to this letter.

Today, the President formally declassified a memorandum drafted by the majority staff of
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). 2 Much of the information in
the declassified HPSCI memorandum overlaps with the information in the criminal referral made
by Senator Graham and me. That information has now been declassified and can no longer
1
Similarly, pursuant to Section 1.8 of Executive Order 13526, I am, as an authorized holder of the information, also
formally challenging the propriety of the classification of the FBI and Justice Department information referenced in
the referral.
2
https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/memo_and_white_house_letter.pdf
Director Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein
February 2, 2018
Page 2 of 2

properly be deemed as classified in our criminal referral. Accordingly, I ask that you
immediately review the classified referral in light of today’s declassification and provide the
Committee with the declassified version by no later than February 6, 2018.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please contact Patrick Davis of my
staff at (202) 224-5225 if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Grassley
Chairman
Committee on the Judiciary

Enclosures: As stated.

cc: The Honorable Michael E. Horowitz


Inspector General
United States Department of Justice

The Honorable Dianne Feinstein


Ranking Member
Committee on the Judiciary

Director, Office of Information Policy


United States Department of Justice
1425 New York Ave, NW
Suite 11050
Washington, DC 20530

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