A statement from the White House moments ago reflects a directive from the Office of the President to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, along with the DOJ and FBI to declassify documents and remove redactions to all investigative text messages. The wording within the request is important:

WHITE HOUSE – At the request of a number of committees of Congress, and for reasons of transparency, the President has directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to provide for the immediate declassification of the following materials: (1) pages 10-12 and 17-34 of the June 2017 application to the FISA court in the matter of Carter W. Page; (2) all FBI reports of interviews with Bruce G. Ohr prepared in connection with the Russia investigation; and (3) all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all Carter Page FISA applications. In addition, President Donald J. Trump has directed the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to publicly release all text messages relating to the Russia investigation, without redaction, of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr. (LINK)

The president (WH counsel) is referencing “committee requests”, this is critical because it removes the legal conflict (executive self-interest) within the release; and makes the request a function of legislative branch oversight. Additionally, and importantly, the request calls for all of the prior text messages to be released without redactions.

The immediate question is: will Dan Coats, Jeff Sessions, Rod Rosenstein and Christopher Wray comply?

The odds are DNI Dan Coats will comply with the request, as a function of legislative oversight and executive approval. You might remember it was likely Dan Coats was the source of the release of the previously declassified FISA application against Carter Page. Within the IC structure, Dan Coats is the decision-maker on intelligence releases.

Also, this release, whenever it takes place, would generally indicate the DOJ Inspector General investigative report on FISA abuse has absorbed/used all of the relevant material.

Expanded Discussion Points SEE HERE

More later…