FBI probing classified Trump-Russia evidence in ‘burn bags,’ including from Comey, memo reveals

The FBI has launched an investigation after finding classified information tied to the baseless Trump-Russia collusion saga stashed in “burn bags,” with the Justice Department releasing some of the once-hidden records as part of its prosecution of fired bureau chief James Comey.

The FBI launched the preliminary investigation into the burn bag saga in July, according to an opening electronic communication made public in DOJ filings in federal court on Monday as part of the Comey prosecution.

The bureau said that the classified information was stashed away in a room at FBI Headquarters and was related to Crossfire Hurricane and also other FBI inquiries into President Donald Trump and his allies.

The preliminary investigation into the burn bag saga is authorized to use “grand jury subpoenas” and “polygraph examinations” to get answers.

Comey has attempted to play the victim card in his effort to dismiss his indictment on charges of lying to and obstructing Congress, but that move unleashed an avalanche of new evidence from the government showing the ex-FBI director hoped to please Hillary Clinton, cheered on media leaks he claimed he did not sanction, and hand wrote notes that directly conflict with his past congressional testimony.

Some of that unflattering portrait of Comey, prosecutors revealed Monday, came from hidden files that the new FBI Director Kash Patel found in burn bags and secret storage rooms at the bureau's headquarters.

Patel told Just the News on Tuesday that “this FBI has worked day and night to open the books for the American people and bring much needed transparency to a weaponized institution that broke trust with the public.”

“We have found several bags containing critical evidence on Russiagate and the Durham annex, and declassified them to show the truth about James Comey and other senior leaders' actions during the disgraceful Crossfire Hurricane scandal,” Patel said. “The transparency will continue even more aggressively every time the corporate media baselessly criticizes us, showing you more and more receipts.”

Federal prosecutors said in court filings that they have also unearthed a trove of personal emails showing Comey openly talked in the days before the 2016 election that he expected to be working soon for President-elect Hillary Clinton and that he was being kept apprised by his friend and FBI special government employee Daniel Richman on apparent efforts to anonymously provide information to the news media.

The FBI’s launch document for investigating the burn bag saga, originating with the FBI Criminal Investigative Division’s Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section, is dated July 21, 2025.

FBI agents said they had made a “request to open and assign a Preliminary Investigation to investigate the activities or involvement of current and/or former FBI employees for potential violations of Title 18 U.S.C. 2071, Concealment, Removal, or Mutilation Generally, and/or other related offenses, between July 1, 2016 and the present day.”

The FBI investigative document states that, in mid-April, “the Director’s Advisory Team was informed of the unusual discovery of highly classified and sensitive documents found inside five ‘burn bags’ located in Room 9582, a certified Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) at the FB Headquarters building in Washington, DC.”

The FBI said the documents that were unearthed included classified documents inside burn bags “which appeared to have been placed in the SCIF around the timeframe of the 2025 presidential inauguration — Friday, January 17, 2025 through Wednesday, January 22, 2025.” The bureau agents wrote that the documents were “presumably intended for destruction”

The discovery led to an “internal management review” to determine if there was a “legitimate purpose” for the documents being there and to figure out the “underlying motivation” for it, the FBI launch document said.

“Among the records found were many related to the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search, the January 6 Capitol breach, the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, as well as a copy of the Classified Appendix to the John Durham Special Counsel investigation,” the FBI said.

The DOJ also showed on Monday that, despite Comey telling Congress he didn’t recall this, he had taken handwritten notes in September 2016 indicating he had been briefed on the so-called Clinton Plan Intelligence indicating Clinton’s 2016 campaign planned to tie Trump to Russia.

Special Counsel John Durham’s 2023 public report revealed that “the Intelligence Community received the Clinton Plan intelligence in late July 2016.”

This intelligence related to an alleged plan by the Clinton campaign to link Trump to Russia and Vladimir Putin in an effort to distract from her private email server scandal. The Durham report showed that Comey was briefed on the Clinton Plan intelligence by then-CIA Director John Brennan in early August 2016 and was also sent a CIA referral memo about the Clinton Plan intelligence in early September 2016.

Nevertheless, Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee in late September 2020 that he did not recall this bombshell referral memo from the CIA. The Trump DOJ’s efforts to indict Comey over that piece of his testimony failed.

“An additional record discovered as part of this management review process was an original referral by the Central Intelligence Agency to former FBI Director James Comey,” the FBI’s newly-unearthed launch document said.

The counterintelligence operational lead was dated Sept. 7, 2016 and was “believed to have been missing for years,” the FBI said, with agents writing that it was found “in a storage closet adjacent to the Director’s office.”

The DOJ recounted some of this to the court on Monday as they pushed back on Comey’s claims that he was being selectively and vindictively prosecuted.

“In the spring of 2025, a team of FBI investigators was assembled to examine possible reform of policies, procedures, compliance, and culture at the FBI. During their work, FBI investigators were alerted to a seemingly unused SCIF in FBI headquarters (Room 9582) containing a random collection of classified documents. A large majority of the documents were on the floor in five burn bags,” the DOJ said. “Room 9582 was then subject to an inventory for the documents that were located inside. Investigators located hundreds of pages relating to Crossfire Hurricane … and the then-classified appendix to the 2016 Durham Special Counsel Report (now partially declassified).”

Federal prosecutors wrote that “the access logs showed an extended period of dormancy, where Room 9582 was rarely if ever accessed” but that “then, in late-December of 2024, access to Room 9582 began to pick up with a spike of activity occurring over the inauguration weekend (January 19 to 22, 2025).”

The DOJ added: “Additionally, inside a locked safe within Room 9582, investigators located copies of handwritten notes of the defendant when he was the Director of the FBI. Defendant’s handwritten notes were not known to any prior investigative teams.”

Comey’s lawyers in late October sought to persuade a judge to dismiss the charges against their client by claiming that he was being selectively and vindictively prosecuted.

“The government has singled out Mr. Comey for prosecution because of his protected speech and because of President Trump’s personal animus toward Mr. Comey,” Comey’s lawyers told the judge in court filings last month. “Such a vindictive and selective prosecution violates the First Amendment, Due Process Clause, and equal protection principles."

The Justice Department fired back in a Monday court filing signed by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Tyler Lemons and Gabriel Diaz.

“The prosecution is not vindictive. The defendant has not produced ‘direct evidence’ of a vindictive motive. And he has not shown that the prosecutor pursued this case ‘solely to punish’ him for exercising his First Amendment rights. So he has not carried his heavy burden of establishing vindictive prosecution,” the DOJ lawyers said Monday. “The prosecution is also not selective. The defendant has not identified similarly situated individuals who were not prosecuted. And he has not provided evidence that the decision to prosecute him was made because of his protected activities. He has not produced the ‘clear evidence’ required for dismissing an indictment based on selective prosecution.”

The DOJ court filing added: “A duly appointed and unbiased prosecutor presented the indictment. And a duly constituted grand jury found probable cause that he committed the indicted offenses. The motion to dismiss and request for discovery should be denied, and the case should proceed to trial.”

Comey, fired as FBI director in 2017 by President Trump, oversaw both the politicized investigation into Hillary Clinton's illicit use of a private email server to send classified information and the baseless Trump-Russia collusion inquiry.

Despite going after Clinton for her improper use of a private email server, Comey himself was using a personal and anonymous Gmail account to discuss FBI matters with Richman.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., told Just the News, No Noise on Tuesday that “President Trump won on the fact that, hey, we’re going to find out what happened” and argued that the new evidence delivered on that promise.

“We talk about lawlessness on the streets. How about lawlessness in the federal government?” Tuberville said.