On May 24, 2019, Trump declassified Russia probe docs related to allow Attorney General William Barr to find the origins of the investigation known as the 2016 Russia probe. While leaving the White House on Friday for Japan, President Trump told reporters that the investigation was “an attempted coup.” The president said it could run up to “millions of pages” and said he declassified FBI and CIA documents, including those that might pertain to contacts overseas in the United Kingdom.
Trump’s comments come the day after he granted Attorney General William Barr new powers to review and potentially release classified information. The president ordered the U.S. intelligence community to “quickly and fully cooperate” with Barr’s investigation into the origins of the Russia probe. Trump said Barr is “in charge” and “let’s see what he finds.”
Trump doubled down saying, “it was an attempted coup or an attempted take down of the President of the United States and that it should never happen to anyone else.” He also said, “I hope he looks at the UK, and I hope he looks at Australia, and I hope he looks at Ukraine, I hope he looks at everything because there was a hoax . . . Its the greatest hoax, probably in the history of our country, and somebody has to get to the bottom of it.”