By David Singer ——Bio and Archives--May 18, 2019
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“Mr. President, you have the ability to release the FISA applications. There was the original applications, the three subsequent renewal applications. We are told, Andrew McCabe said, no dossier, no FISA warrant. That was a backdoor to your campaign before the election. The dossier also was leaked to "The Washington Post," parts of it, and Isikoff and David Corn, to the American people, and, of course, never verified. Do you have plans to release those FISA applications, Gang of Eight information, the 302s of Bruce Ohr and others, and the five buckets are John Solomon and Sara Carter, as they call it? PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP: I do, I have plans to declassify and release. I have plans to absolutely release. But I have some very talented people working for me, lawyers. And they really didn't want me to do it early on. Devin Nunes, by the way, and Meadows, you look at Jim Jordan, and all of the people, they worked so hard. And a lot of people wanted me to do it a long time ago. I’m glad I didn't do it. We got a great result without having to do it but we will.
One of the reasons that my lawyers didn't want me to do it is they said, if I do it, they will call it a form of obstruction, so they will say, oh, you released these documents so we would make all of this information transparent. You know, and politics you always hear transparency. It would make it transparent. And then they call it obstruction, knowing the people we are dealing with. So, frankly, I thought it would be better if we held it to the end. No, but at the right time, we will be absolutely releasing it. I did the right thing by not doing it so far. But you understand, they would call it something that it wouldn't be. It's the only time you would be transparent where they would say bad things about transparency.”Certainly the publics’ right to know is very important—but Trump should heed his lawyers’ sound advice and keep his gunpowder dry until Durham completes his assignment. Another cogent reason to do so is the growing interest shown by the mainstream media following Barr and Durham’s entry into the media spotlight.
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David Singer is an Australian Lawyer, a Foundation Member of the International Analyst Network and Convenor of Jordan is Palestine International—an organization calling for sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine. Previous articles written by him can be found at: jordanispalestine.blogspot.com