Trump says information in Russia-gate burn bags should be released unless it 'unfairly' hurt people

President Trump said he wants information to be released from the probe into his discredited ties to Russia in the 2016 campaign, as long as the material meets his definition of what’s sensible for public disclosure.

“I want everything to be shown as long as it’s fair and reasonable,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday after he signed a bill at the White House. He was responding to a question about the trove of “burn bags” containing sensitive information about the Trump-Russia probe found at the FBI by Director Kash Patel.

“I think it will be shown and it should be shown, and I think [Mr. Patel] feels that way and I think [Attorney General] Pam [Bondi] feels that way,” Mr. Trump said. “But it’s got to be stuff that really doesn’t hurt people unfairly because you have so many people involved. If they can do that in a fair way, I think it’s great.”

He slammed the Trump-Russia investigation as a “scam” perpetrated by Democrats.

“They love talking about it, but I would like to see people exposed that might be bad and we’ll see how that all works out, but it’s getting to be very old news,” Mr. Trump said.

The president said if Democrats really had any information of note, they would’ve released it already.

Fox News reported Wednesday that Mr. Patel found the burn bags containing thousands of documents inside a secret room at the FBI. Burn bags are used to get rid of information designated as classified or higher.

Mr. Patel has turned the documents over to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, to be reviewed.

There have been renewed efforts to look into the investigations regarding Mr. Trump’s debunked ties to Russia ahead of the 2016 election. Former reports had agreed that while Russia played a role in the election with the aim of helping Mr. Trump to win, Mr. Trump did not play a part in them.

The FBI launched its own investigation into former head of the CIA, John Brennan, and former FBI Director James Comey over the investigations into the Trump-Russia ties. 

A “lessons-learned review” of the investigation into Mr. Trump’s possible ties to Russia during the election, requested by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, found that “while the overall assessment was deemed defensible,” there were “procedural anomalies and tradecraft issues” in the handling of the politically charged information.