FBI Director Kash Patel claims to have found a trove of classified documents on the Trump-Russia probe stashed in burn bags in a secret room within bureau headquarters.
Fox News Digital based its reporting on claims by sources whose roles or knowledge of the situation are not described in any way, but the report states that one of the documents was the classified annex to former special counsel John Durham's final report, which includes the underlying intelligence he reviewed on the origins of the counterintelligence operation Crossfire Hurricane.
"Ultimately, the release of the classified annex will lend more credibility to the assertion that there was a coordinated plan inside the U.S. government to help the Clinton campaign stir up controversy connecting Trump to Russia," said the source. "Mere days after this intelligence was collected, the FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane. It’s really hard to see how Brennan, Clapper and Comey are going to be able to explain this away."
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard alleged last week that her office had uncovered evidence of a "treasonous conspiracy" by her predecessor James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey, who she alleges had manipulated and manufactured intelligence claiming that Vladimir Putin worked to get Donald Trump elected president.
"Just think about this," Patel told podcaster Joe Rogan in June. "Me, as director of the FBI, the former 'Russiagate guy,' when I first got to the bureau, found a room that Comey and others hid from the world in the Hoover Building, full of documents and computer hard drives that no one had ever seen or heard of. Locked the key and hid access and just said, 'No one's ever gonna find this place.'"
Patel has turned the documents over to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), chairman of the Senate Judicial Committee, to examine as part of his review of Durham's investigation, which resulted in criminal charges against three individuals, two of whom were acquitted at trial, while former FBI lawyer who pleaded guilty to altering an email was used to support a surveillance application against Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
"While most members of Congress were ready to ignore the unprecedented civil rights abuses against the Trump campaign and myself, Kash Patel’s training as a top public defender made him the perfect advocate for exposing one of the greatest election interference scandals of all time," Page said.
The former FBI attorney, Kevin Clinesmith, admitted that in June 2017 he sent an email to an FBI agent indicating Page was “not a source” for the CIA, although he had been in the past, but U.S. District Judge James Boasberg sided with the defense argument that he believed that information was accurate and sentenced him to probation and community service, not jail.
"Kash was instrumental in unraveling the Russia collusion hoax and finding evidence of government malfeasance despite constant attempts by the FBI and DOJ to stonewall our investigation," said former Rep. Devin Nunes, who worked with Patel to investigate the probe during Trump's first term and is now chief executive of the president's Truth Social network.
The Fox Digital report was met with skepticism online, noting that Trump's past conspiracy theories have been revived as he fights off questions about his relationship to Jeffrey Epstein.
"Anything but Epstein," said journalist Amanda Moore.
"We're really supposed to believe that: a) burn bags were just sitting around for literally years (as opposed to their contents *being burned*) and b) he went through a bunch of burn bags," replied Bluesky user Rokey. "I completely doubt anything 'juicy' exists, tbh - but they are certainly capable of fabricating something."
"All it needs is a part about how Hillary Clinton was dressing up as a ghost to scare off any agents who got too close to the truth," joked Bluesky user S.T. Jones.
"If Trump keeps making incriminating Epstein statements Kash and Bongino might have to find some Hillary emails," said journalist Ron Filipkowski.
"As they get more desperate to cover up their pervert president's crimes their discoveries start to sound like grocery store tabloids from 1998," replied the Internet Hippo account, adding a photo of Hillary Clinton gracing the cover of Weekly World News with a headline claiming she had adopted an alien baby.
"The latest twist in the Russia diversion focuses on this supposed 'intel' from another country that predicted the FBI would betray Trump," posted The Bulwark's Will Sommer. "Yet the country that provided that tip goes suspiciously unnamed."