Patel found thousands of sensitive Trump–Russia probe docs inside 'burn bags' in secret room at FBI

Fox News

6 days ago

EXCLUSIVE: FBI Director Kash Patel found a trove of sensitive documents related to the origins of the Trump–Russia probe buried in multiple "burn bags" in a secret room inside the bureau, sources familiar with the incident told Fox News Digital.
Sources told Fox News Digital that the "burn bag" system is used to destroy documents designated as classified or higher.
Sources told Fox News Digital that multiple burn bags were found and filled with thousands of documents.
Sources told Fox News Digital that one of the documents FBI officials found in a burn bag was the classified annex to former special counsel John Durham's final report, which includes the underlying intelligence he reviewed.
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.
Sources exclusively briefed Fox News Digital on some of the contents of the classified annex — including that the U.S. intelligence community had credible foreign sources indicating that the FBI would play a role in spreading the alleged Trump–Russia collusion narrative — before the bureau ever launched its controversial Crossfire Hurricane probe.
A source familiar with the contents of the classified annex told Fox News Digital that while it may not have been exactly clear in the moment what the intelligence collection meant, with the benefit of hindsight, it predicted the FBI's next move "with alarming specificity."
"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," the source, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters that have not yet been made public, told Fox News Digital.
"Mere days after this intelligence was collected, the FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane," the source said. "It's really hard to see how Brennan, Clapper and Comey are going to be able to explain this away."
Sources told Fox News Digital that Patel and his team discovered a previously undisclosed sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) in the FBI headquarters.
Fox News Digital reached out to previous FBI Directors Christopher Wray and James Comey for comment and has not yet received any responses.
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.
Patel has been instrumental in unraveling the alleged Russia collusion narrative.
He previously served as the chief investigator in the congressional probe into alleged Trump–Russia collusion — uncovering suspected government surveillance abuse that led to the appointment of two special counsels: one who determined there was no such collusion, Mueller, and another who determined the entire premise of the FBI's original investigation was bogus, Durham.
Patel served as senior counsel and a national security adviser on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) for then-Chair Rep. Devin Nunes.
While Mueller investigated, the HPSCI opened its own investigation into alleged Trump–Russia collusion.
In July 2016, during the election cycle, the FBI launched an investigation into whether the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to influence the outcome of the election. That investigation, inside the bureau, was known as Crossfire Hurricane.
By January 2017, Comey had notified Trump of a dossier, known as the Steele dossier, that contained salacious and unverified allegations about Trump's purported coordination with the Russian government, a key document prompting the opening of the probe.
The dossier was authored by Christopher Steele, an ex-British intelligence officer, and commissioned by Fusion GPS. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign hired Fusion GPS during the 2016 election cycle.
It was eventually determined that the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded the dossier through the law firm Perkins Coie.
Trump fired Comey in May 2017. Days later, Mueller was appointed as special counsel to take over the Crossfire Hurricane probe and investigate whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election cycle.
While Mueller investigated, the HPSCI opened its own investigation into alleged Trump–Russia collusion.
Patel, as chief investigator for Nunes, by February 2018 had discovered widespread government surveillance abuse, including alleged improper surveillance of former Trump campaign aide 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 told Fox News Digital.
Patel was an integral part of the creation of a memo released by then-Chair Nunes in February 2018, which detailed the DOJ's and FBI's surveillance of Page under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Nunes and Patel revealed that the infamous anti-Trump dossier funded by Democrats "formed an essential part" of the application to spy on Page.
The memo referred to closed-door testimony from former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who said that "no surveillance warrant would have been sought" from the FISA court "without the Steele dossier information."
However, when applying for the FISA warrant, the FBI omitted the origins of the dossier, specifically its funding from Clinton, who was Trump's 2016 presidential opponent.
The memo also said Steele, who worked as an FBI informant, was eventually cut off from the bureau for what the FBI described as the most serious of violations, "an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI."
The memo noted that the FBI and DOJ obtained "one initial FISA warrant" targeting Page and three FISA renewals from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The statute required that every 90 days a FISA order on an American citizen "must be reviewed."
The memo revealed that Comey signed three FISA applications for Page, while McCabe, former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and former Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente signed at least one.
The memo was widely criticized by Democrats but was ultimately correct.
"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," Nunes, who now chiefs Trump's Truth Social site, told Fox News Digital earlier in 2025.
The Justice Department inspector general, Michael Horowitz, reviewed the memo and confirmed the dossier served as the basis for the controversial FISA warrants obtained against Page.
"The feds spied on Kash during the probe and ran information warfare against him, but Kash helped expose them anyway," Nunes told Fox News Digital.
Nunes was referring to the Justice Department in November 2017 using grand jury subpoenas to secretly obtain the personal email and phone data for Patel and another Nunes staffer on the HPSCI as they were investigating FBI abuse and the Russia probe.
Meanwhile, Patel, now serving as FBI director, has opened a criminal investigation into then-CIA Director John Brennan, after receiving a criminal referral from Ratcliffe; and has opened a criminal investigation into Comey.
As for Grassley's team, he is expected to release a declassified version of the annex to Durham's final report, which includes the underlying intelligence he reviewed. The intelligence has previously been classified.