Patel fires back at media critics after uncovering secret FBI 'burn bags' with classified documents
Sources previously told Fox News Digital the "burn bag" system is used to destroy documents designated as classified or higher.
Sources also said multiple burn bags were found and filled with thousands of documents. One document FBI officials found in a burn bag, sources said, was the classified annex to former special counsel John Durham's final report, which includes the underlying intelligence he reviewed.
Patel addressed the burn bags on X, reminding people of what he proved in 2017 and 2018.
"In 2017/18, I proved the Steele Dossier was fictitious intelligence, weaponized by corrupt FBI officials to deceive a federal judge and unlawfully spy on then presidential candidate Trump's campaign – all paid for by his opponent," the FBI director said. "The media called me a liar.
"Now I'm the FBI Director: We just uncovered burn bags/room filled with Russia Gate files, including the Durham annex, and declassified them," Patel continued. "Once again, I released the prior FBI's own documents and exposed the truth. The same media is calling me a liar again. Maybe this FBI will release more docs directly, from FBI HQ…so we can see who is lying – wouldn't want to deprive the fake news of more bogus Pulitzers."
The declassification of the classified annex is being done in close coordination between CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Patel, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Attorney General Pam Bondi and acting National Security Agency Director William Hartman.
The declassified annex will be transmitted to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, who ultimately will release the document to the public.
Patel, in a June interview with podcast host Joe Rogan, revealed that he found a room full of documents and computer hard drives "that no one had ever seen or heard of."
"Just think about this," Patel told Rogan. "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 and his staff have been working through the documents, some of which are related to sensitive investigations, including the FBI's original Trump–Russia probe, known inside the bureau as Crossfire Hurricane.
It is unclear what the latest documents cover specifically, but sources told Fox News Digital that the most recent discovery was pursuant to an investigative request from Grassley.
Patel has turned the documents over to Grassley.
Grassley has been requesting information related to Durham's probe. Durham was appointed after then-special counsel Robert Mueller completed his yearslong investigation into the origins of the Trump–Russia probe — including intelligence community malfeasance during and in the aftermath of the 2016 election.
Sources told Fox News Digital that Grassley's team is now reviewing the underlying information as part of its investigative work.
As for the other records, Patel's staff is working to turn them over to Congress pursuant to investigative requests by committees of jurisdiction.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
23 minutes ago
- New York Times
When Bloodshed and Chaos Arrived at 345 Park Avenue
A group from the finance firm Blackstone gathered for a mixer off the lobby of 345 Park Avenue on Monday evening. Across the big, airy space a Blackstone senior executive, Wesley LePatner, 43, was passing through after a day of meetings upstairs. She was a mentor to young women who oversaw a real estate team that had injected tens of billions of dollars into their portfolio. A busy Monday, nearing its end. There was the lobby's security guard — friendly and popular. He stepped outside every day to buy a lottery ticket from the news stand on Lexington Avenue. Today's my day, he would joke with the young vendor. I'll win big and solve all my problems. Darin Laing, 37, in finance, passed him by as he left with a colleague to grab a quick dinner across the street. None of them noticed a dark BMW pull up on Park Avenue and double park. The driver stepped out. It was a hot day, the beginning of a heat wave that gripped the city. So the lobby's big blinds were lowered against the sun, masking his approach to the building. Just before 6:30 p.m., the driver, a slim young man wearing sunglasses, entered the lobby with an assault rifle in his right hand. Much would be learned about that man in the hours and days to follow — and about the four others who would ultimately lose their lives. But at that moment and for a long stretch that followed, he was an anonymous, terrifying, unfolding threat. One that New Yorkers have seen play out all over America, and now had come to their door. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
23 minutes ago
- New York Times
The Turmoil of an ICE Courthouse Arrest
In One Image The Turmoil of an ICE Courthouse Arrest By Todd Heisler, Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Wesley Parnell This is one of the many arrests happening each day inside the immigration courthouse in New York City. Agents cover their faces with masks. They wait in the hallway before springing into action, grabbing migrants leaving routine hearings. President Trump has enlisted officers across the government, but it can be difficult to tell which agencies they work for. Carlos Javier Lopez Benitez, a 27-year-old from Paraguay, was one of their targets on July 16. He was in court seeking asylum. News photographers, who outnumber federal agents some days, dashed to document the arrest. His sister, Lilian Lopez, clung to his arms, wailing, as officers clawed her grip. Supported by This has become the new normal in America's immigration courts. In New York City, especially, courthouse arrests have driven a spike in detentions of undocumented immigrants without criminal records. Immigration authorities used to stay away from courthouses. They were aware that their presence could scare migrants from engaging with the legal system. That changed in May when the Trump administration began arresting some immigrants showing up for mandatory court dates so that their deportations could be expedited. The arrests turned the courthouses into places to witness Mr. Trump's immigration crackdown unfold, in real time, every day. Masked agents stand sentry outside the courtrooms. Migrants show up for their hearings, not knowing if they're walking into a trap. The arrests sometimes devolve into volatile tussles, with news photographers, activists and politicians crowding hallways to witness the spectacle. Family members are often left reeling. 'His arrest was like the show of the day,' Porfiria Lopez, one of Mr. Lopez Benitez's sisters, said of her brother's arrest. 'The question we were left with is: How do they decide who to arrest? Is it chance or just theater?' Mr. Lopez Benitez, who is from Paraguay, crossed the southern border in May 2023. He was briefly apprehended by border patrol agents in Arizona, placed in deportation proceedings and released into the United States as his case wound through the courts. He traveled to New York, where he reunited with his two sisters, who are U.S. citizens. He lived in Queens, worked in construction and did not have a criminal record, according to his family and his lawyers. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
23 minutes ago
- New York Times
Curtis Sliwa Wants to Be Mayor. He's Taking Off His Beret to Prove It.
Curtis Sliwa, the Guardian Angels founder, flamboyant radio host and Republican nominee for mayor, has been an inescapable fixture of life in New York City for decades. But when he strolled into the Lower Manhattan offices of an important business group recently, its chief executive literally did a double take. Mr. Sliwa had swapped out his familiar sateen Guardian Angels jacket for a dark suit. And on his head, where a swooping red beret has sat almost every day of his adult life, there was only a cap-shaped tan line and balding pate. 'He stuck out his hand, and I looked at him and said, 'Oh my god!'' said Kathryn S. Wylde, the longtime leader of the group, the Partnership for New York City. ''I didn't recognize you.'' In a city rich with sartorial symbols, few have been more memorable than Mr. Sliwa's ruby red headpiece. It helped the Guardian Angels, his subway patrol group, gain notoriety in the 1970s; was his uniform for a career in television and radio and provided an unofficial motif for his unsuccessful first run for mayor in 2021. Yet as he takes a second, seemingly more viable run at City Hall, Mr. Sliwa, 71, is beginning to show up without it. Certainly not always, but especially for meetings with business leaders, union officials and others he has deemed to be serious people. He has pledged to keep it off permanently if he is elected in November. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
