President Donald Trump had sought the release of classified portions of a surveillance warrant application used to target former campaign adviser Carter Page. | Alex Brandon/AP photo white house Trump ditches plans to quickly release Russia probe documents

President Donald Trump on Friday abandoned plans to quickly declassify and release sensitive documents connected to the FBI's Russia investigation, citing a "perceived negative impact" on the probe and concerns raised by "key allies" about dumping the materials.

Trump instead announced that he would defer to a Justice Department watchdog — Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who he once derided as an "Obama guy" — to finish a review of whether anti-Trump bias affected the FBI's handling of its 2016 Russia probe.


"Therefore, the Inspector General ... has been asked to review these documents on an expedited basis," Trump tweeted Friday morning. "I believe he will move quickly on this (and hopefully other things which he is looking at). In the end I can always declassify if it proves necessary. Speed is very important to me — and everyone!"

Trump had sought the release of classified portions of a surveillance warrant application used to track former campaign adviser Carter Page. He also said he wanted to publish the interview notes of a top Justice Department official and the text messages sent by former FBI Director James Comey and other senior bureau officials.

The FBI's early investigation into the Trump campaign's ties with Russia eventually led to special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into whether Trump's aides assisted Moscow in its efforts to influence the 2016 election.

Trump's Friday tweet likely staves off a confrontation between the president and his own intelligence officials, who have publicly and privately warned of the dangers of revealing classified intelligence. Democrats have attacked the initial decision to release the documents as reckless, arguing it could endanger international intelligence partnerships and sources. Trump told the Hill in an interview earlier this week that he had decided to release the documents in part at the urging of conservative Fox News TV hosts.

"I have been asked by so many people that I respect, please — the great Lou Dobbs, the great Sean Hannity, the wonderful, great Jeanine Pirro," he said.

After Trump announced he would slow the declassification push, Sen. Mark Warner — the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee — took a swipe at Trump's comment.

"This is why the President should be relying on the advice of intelligence and law enforcement professionals, not cable news hosts," Warner tweeted.

Democrats feared that Trump's move to release sensitive Russia probe documents was part of a broader GOP plot to drop explosive information that would rally the president's supporters ahead of the November midterms. But by deferring to the inspector general's review of documents, a final decision on making the information public could now be delayed by weeks or months.

The decision to slow things down came after the White House asserted on Monday that the president had already ordered the "immediate declassification" of the documents. Since then, Justice Department officials have said they were reviewing the president's order. As president, Trump has the ultimate authority to determine what information is considered classified.

His decision to lean on Horowitz comes despite Trump's sporadic broadsides against the veteran Justice Department watchdog. "Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy?" Trump wondered in February amid a complaint about the timing of a report on the FBI's handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

Trump later said Horowitz "blew it" on the report, which concluded that anti-Trump bias expressed by some agents did not influence the outcome of the Clinton probe. Trump, however, embraced findings that were critical of the FBI.

Trump on Monday also directed DOJ to "publicly release ... without redaction" the Russia probe-related text messages of several senior law enforcement officials, including Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former bureau agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and current DOJ official Bruce Ohr.

Trump's top allies in Congress have long demanded that Trump intervene in the ongoing Russia investigation to expose what they say is corruption and bias inside the FBI.

These GOP lawmakers say anti-Trump animus spurred the bureau to launch its Russia probe on shaky evidence in the hopes of toppling Trump's presidential aspirations.

Democrats counter that these claims are really a manufactured conspiracy theory intended to undermine the ongoing Mueller investigation of the Trump campaign's contacts with Russians.

Mueller is also looking at whether Trump attempted to obstruct the FBI's Russia investigation in its earlier stages.

