Just hours before departing office, President Trump on Tuesday evening formally completed the declassification of a large trove of Russia probe documents, overruling objections posed by the FBI in a last bid effort to keep memos secret.
Trump revealed in a statement issued by the White House that the materials were not previously shared with Congress or the public and he received them on Dec. 30 in a binder, determining they ought to be made public. The binder is about a foot tall, according to officials who have seen it.
"I determined that the materials in that binder should be declassified to the maximum extent possible," the president said.
The effort to release the materials, however, hit a bump when the FBI objected on Sunday to a complete release of the information. The president nonetheless ordered them released but allowed for some modest redactions to be made.
