Ka-boom

Trump just now gave instructions to declassify documents bearing on abuse of government to obtain FISA warrants to search unlawfully into his campaign, and beyond. He gave instructions to a list of executive departments to declassify information.

He gave instructions for Executive agencies to declassify documents to the extent that they can. Notably these agencies include The Secretary of Energy and the Secretary of the Treasury.

It appears that including the Treasury Department means Trump is having documents declassified regarding Clinton Foundation, or else possibly documents relating to Papadopoulos money tracking or possibly the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

And it appears that including the Energy Department to declassify documents would relate to Uranium One and to Clinton.

This is what observers are hoping.

You might reasonably ask why Trump doesn't simply declassify all these documents himself.

The president has power to declassify documents because he is so often engaged with foreign governments. If the president had to be concerned about his ability to discuss classified intelligence then the president would be hamstrung in doing that. So the laws protect the president so that he can be effective discussing sensitive matters with foreign leaders.

When it comes to declassifying documents that are deemed in the public interest it is assumed that there is no national security involved. In these cases the process allows review of the documents by the agencies involved.

You can see how it would backfire if Trump declassified them unilaterally. There will already be backlash, it would be a lot worse if Trump did all this himself.

So Trump has given ownership of this process to Attorney General William Barr. This is to facilitate DOJ review of how the intelligence agencies were used in the 2016 election. Barr is arbiter on points of conflict as Trump was the subject of investigation.

Trump's Memorandum specifies the agencies with documents that the Attorney General will review. The list of agencies gives an idea about the documents they're interested in seeing. With the departments of Energy and Treasury sticking out among them.

* Secretary of State, Pompeo
* Secretary of Treasury, Mnuchin
* Secretary of Defense, Shanahan
* Secretary of Energy, Perry
* Secretary of Homeland Security, McAleenan
* Director of National Intelligence, Coats
* Director of CIA, Haspel

And of course, the Attorney General, William Barr.

The memorandum does not allow Barr to delegate authority.

The timing appears to be to coincide with the release of Inspector General review. Although a lot of information might not have anything to do with IG review, the timing of release of any extraneous documents will be up to William Barr.





We've been waiting for this moment. Now it's here.

Knowing Democrat leaders as we do, observing principals pointing blame at each other as their expensive constructed wearisome narrative crumbles, as they scramble for cover and find themselves cornered we can expect their wild attacks to redouble.

If you expect them to be exposed, to wither and disappear, you'd be wrong. They're all in and they never stop. It's not in them to learn anything except new lines of attack. And it doesn't matter how ridiculous.

If only there was the real threat of being jailed.