A former top Pentagon official says he believes roughly “99%” transparency has been achieved in the so-called “Russiagate” controversy.
Kash Patel, who last served as chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, was asked by Fox Business host Lou Dobbs on Wednesday to talk about former President Donald Trump’s eleventh-hour order to declassify documents related to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
Patel said he does not know what exact documents Trump ordered for release, and they have yet to be unveiled to the public other than some scattered media reporting, but he is “hopeful” there is a broad sweep.
Referring back to his time as an aide to Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Patel said they both agreed that transparency and accountability were their two priorities in conducting oversight of the inquiry into Trump’s alleged ties to Russia that started during the Obama administration. As a staffer on the panel, Patel said he saw all the documents that he believes should be released in order to achieve accountability for the investigation that ultimately didn’t find criminal conspiracy but nevertheless cast a cloud over much of Trump’s presidency.
After crediting the work of Dobbs and others, such as investigative journalist John Solomon, for helping reach about “99%” transparency, Patel said accountability is still very much lacking. “Accountability, unfortunately, that can only come from within,” he said. “So, we’re still relying on the Department of Justice to execute that front.”
U.S. Attorney John Durham, who was elevated to special counsel status in October, is conducting a criminal inquiry into the Russia investigation and so far has obtained one guilty plea from a former FBI lawyer. It remains to be seen how the Justice Department under President Biden will deal with Durham’s inquiry.
Alluding to the new administration, Patel, who also was a National Security Council staffer and was a top aide to now-former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, said, “We need to push even harder” for accountability “because the times are even tougher.”
