NEW YORK, July 30. /TASS/. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has found classified documents related to the 2016 alleged Russia election meddling scandal buried in "burn bags," Fox News reports, citing sources.

According to the broadcaster, "thousands of documents" were kept in bags meant to be destroyed in "a secret room" in the FBI headquarters in the US capital. The documents, discovered by FBI Director Kash Patel, include the classified annex to former Special Counsel John Durham's final report, who had said in 2023 following an investigation that the FBI had acted in an unusual manner when initiating a probe into Trump’s alleged links to Russia. The annex is believed to contain evidence that the US intelligence community had foreign sources indicating that "the FBI would play a role in spreading the alleged Trump-Russia collusion narrative."

According to Fox News, the document is being declassified by the FBI together with the CIA, the office of the director of National Intelligence, the Department of Defense and the National Security Agency. The annex will later be transmitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which intends to release it to the public.

On July 2, the New York Post published a report by the CIA Directorate of Analysis, which says that the report on Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 US election involved numerous procedural violations and could be politically motivated. The report notes, among other things, that the Steele dossier, published by the US media during the 2016 election campaign, was included in the assessment of the situation particularly at the behest of then-FBI chief John Brennan. The dossier contained false allegations about a collusion between Russia and Trump, who was then a presidential candidate. The dossier was compiled by the US company Fusion GPS, former British intelligence officer Chirstopher Steele and his firm based in London. Brennan ignored the opinion of FBI officers, insisting that the dossier be included in the final report, while he said otherwise at closed-door meetings with Congress members.

In 2016, US intelligence agencies accused Russia of interfering in US elections. The investigation was led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. On April 18, 2019, the US Department of Justice released his final report, in which the special council said that he had been unable to find evidence of collusion between Russia and the winning presidential candidate, Donald Trump. The latter has repeatedly denied allegations of illegal communication with Russian officials. Moscow, in turn, slammed claims about its attempts to influence US elections as unfounded.