Donald Trump’s latest classified document scandal brings him right back to Russia

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When Bill Barr lied about the contents of the Mueller Report and then buried it, the mainstream media initially went along with Bill Barr’s lies instead of challenging him on it. Ever since then, it’s been difficult to even so much as bring up the Trump-Russia scandal without people yelling “hoax” in response. But Trump-Russia is one of the ugliest and most dangerous scandals in American history – and it just got even uglier.

Just before Donald Trump left office, he obtained a binder of classified intel about Russia, claiming that he was looking to see what he could declassify. That alone was suspiciously on the nose. But now CNN is reporting that the binder was last seen with Mark Meadows and has since disappeared, even as the U.S. intel community has spent the past two-plus years trying to track it down.

So let’s see here. After Trump lost and knew he was going to have to leave office, he used a flimsy excuse to get his hands on classified intel about Russia, and then it conveniently “disappeared” while he was leaving office. This fits with everything else we’ve seen over the years about Trump and Russia.

The whole thing gets even uglier when you look at it within the context of Trump stealing hundreds of other classified documents on his way out of office and lying about having stashed them in his home. It’s not like Trump has a history of misplacing classified documents. He has a history of stealing them.

We’ll see where this goes. There’s no reporting yet on whether this “missing” binder of classified intel about Russia is part of Jack Smith’s criminal probe. It’s worth keeping in mind that Mark Meadows – who was supposedly the last person seen with this binder – has already testified to Jack Smith’s grand jury under oath in exchange for immunity. Smith can easily put Meadows back on the stand and force him to answer questions about what Trump did with this binder as well. In any case, the Trump-Russia scandal is alive and well.