Thickness of 25cm... Top-Secret File on Russia Disappears at End of Trump Term

US and NATO Collected Russian Intelligence
Trump: "Meadows, Former Chief of Staff, Has It"
Meadows' Side Denies "Related to Documents"

It was recently confirmed that a dossier containing highly classified information about Russia's attempt to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the related investigation disappeared near the end of former President Donald Trump's term.

According to reports on the 15th (local time) by U.S. CNN and the daily New York Times (NYT), citing multiple sources, this dossier, which is about 10 inches (approximately 25.4 cm) thick, contains raw intelligence collected by the United States and NATO allies regarding Russia and Russian agents.

On October 4th (local time), former U.S. President Donald Trump appeared at the Manhattan District Court in New York City, where the fraud loan allegation trial was held, and sat in the defendant's seat.
[Photo by Reuters Yonhap News]

In addition, it includes sources and methods that influenced the U.S. government's assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help former President Trump win the 2016 election, as well as various materials related to the Russia investigation, such as a copy of the FBI's failed national security surveillance warrant application to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser and text messages between two FBI agents involved in the investigation.

The dossier, known by the FBI investigation code name "Crossfire Hurricane," which targeted Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, is reported to be about 2,700 pages long.

The dossier was last seen at the White House near the end of Trump's presidency. At that time, former President Trump ordered the declassification of most of the contents of the dossier the day before his departure. Trump planned to declassify and release the related materials because he believed his political opponents used the Russia investigation to damage him.

Accordingly, White House officials made multiple copies with sensitive information redacted. However, during the review process by White House lawyers and the Department of Justice to determine which information to redact, the original dossier containing all the sensitive information disappeared, and its whereabouts remain a mystery to this day, CNN reported.

Russian President Putin and former U.S. President Trump met at the 2017 G20 Summit
[Photo by AP Yonhap News]

Regarding this, former President Trump suggested in an April 2021 interview that then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows still had the dossier, but Meadows' attorney strongly denied this, stating, "Meadows has nothing to do with any missing documents."

An official said that the content of the materials themselves is not particularly sensitive. A version of the missing dossier with sensitive information redacted has already been released on the FBI website under the Freedom of Information Act.

However, intelligence authorities see a risk that the raw, missing dossier could fully expose secret sources and methods. This has raised concerns among U.S. intelligence officials that national security secrets of the U.S. and its allies could be leaked, and last year, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee was briefed on the lost documents and the government's efforts to recover them.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.