Nothing-Burger Russiagate Binder Released

Today, the FBI sent the infamous “binder” of declassified documents to Congress, who apparently forwarded them to John Solomon at Just The News.

This isn’t a shot at Solomon or Jerry Dunleavy, I think they’re doing their jobs as journalists. But as a starting point, it’s frustrating that the FBI did not simply release all the documents for the public.

The lead story from Just The News covers 115 pages of documents on Stefan Halper, and appears to be a complete rehash of old material, perhaps with some marginally new information on payments he received as a confidential human source.

With that as the lead story, it does not appear there will be any significant revelations in the remaining materials.

Influencers have falsely claimed that all Crossfire Hurricane documents were declassified, but, the order actually only covered the “binder” compiled in the first Trump term. We’ve learned a great deal since then.

Some of you may have been confused on our post last week suggesting we’d be better off if they didn’t do this at all—

The reason for that is the limited bandwidth in the public. The public is fatigued with the “Russiagate” stories, and the administration would have been well served in getting more important documents out.

Our recommendations for initial documents have been provided to numerous contacts over the years, without anything to show for it. Our short list is as follows:

1. All intelligence memorandums obtained by the CIA from the Dutch, including but not limited to:

   1. Clinton plan intelligence

      1. Including information on contacts between Clinton campaign operatives and PR firms.

      2. Including the referral to the FBI

   2. Renteria Memo

   3. Alleged Russian social media campaigns or hacking (Concord/IRA)

2. Transcript of John Brennan’s phone call with Alexander Bortnikov on August 4, 2016

3. All DNC hack attribution reports submitted by Manos Antonakakis, David Dagon, Rodney Joffe, Georgia Tech, Packet Forensics

   1. Including all communications with the Special Counsel Mueller team

   2. Including all materials and taskings submitted via DARPA’s Angelos Keromytis and Tejas Patel

4. Crowdstrike’s DNC hack attribution reports.

5. Agreements, contracts, and other files detailing government agencies, cyber firms and contractors used by Special Counsel Mueller

6. All 302’s/1023’s from Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation.

7. All 302’s/1023’s for:

   1. Rodney Joffe

   2. Manos Antonakakis

   3. David Dagon

   4. Mike Mcintire (NYT)

   5. Daniel Jones

   6. Igor Danchenko

   7. Christopher Steele

8. All documents supporting the Netyksho et al indictment.

9. All briefing materials, notes, and transcripts of briefings given to President Obama relating to Crossfire Hurricane or the Clinton plan intelligence.

10. All NSA/CIA materials relating to taskings of Rodney Joffe, Manos Antonakakis, David Dagon, Raymond Saulino or Victor Oppleman

    1. Including materials on Trustcor, Measurement Systems, Frigate Bay Holdings, Chivalric Holding Company, Packet Forensics, Littoral Ventures, Vostrom Ventures, Appmospheric (Appmosferic), Plasmanet/FreeLotto

11. HPSCI’s report on the 2016/17 Intelligence Community Assessment

12. The 2016/17 Intelligence Community Assessment

13. All materials supporting the October 7, 2016 joint attribution statement

Of course, there is far more to request. There are dozens of witnesses who could be subpoenaed for testimony as well.

Yesterday we received the following documents produced after years of FOIA litigation for materials supporting the October 7, 2016 joint attribution statement. I will be fighting redactions and may offer a few comments this weekend on these.

• Doc 5

• Doc 6

• Doc 8

• Doc 9