(Tony Sifert, Headline USA) The Department of Justice ignored a request by out-going President Donald Trump to release to the public a binder of declassified materials that disclosed the FBI’s role in constructing the Russia-collusion hoax, according to a report from Just the News.
Just the News’s John Solomon attempted to view the relevant binder in the Trump administration section of the National Archives, only to be told that the documents were not there.
The reporters were given instead a memo—penned by Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows—reminding the Justice Department of its duty to redact and release the material.
In an interview with Just the News, Meadows professed to be amazed that the DOJ would ignore “a lawful order from a sitting president.”
“Well, you know, the Swamp is pretty deep,” Meadows told Just the News. “When [Trump] got there, he realized that not only was the Swamp very deep, but that they would fight back.”
Meadows praised Trump’s commitment to transparency—“the president was all in on a transparency issue”—and went on to describe the ways in which deep-staters in the administration would undermine the president’s orders.
“What would happen is he would have a directive, and then we would see, as people were leaving the Oval Office, you know, they were nodding compliance in the Oval Office, and the minute they go out, they said, ‘Well, we’re not going to do that,'” Meadows said.
Trump spokeswoman Liz Harrington confirmed Meadows’s account of purposeful executive-branch dysfunction.
“For four years they lied, leaked, spied on, and smeared President Trump in their attempts to defy the will of the people,” Harrington told Just the News.
“This is further proof of the depths they will go to hide their corruption,” she added. “It is far past time for transparency of one of the biggest political scandals in American history.”
In late June, Trump gave Solomon, founder of Just the News, permission to access “non-public administration records” at the National Archives, Politico reported.
“There are some non-public documents that the president declassified before he left,” Solomon told Politico. “I’ve been public about my efforts to get my hands on them.”
