Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel has reportedly discovered a significant cache of FBI documents related to the investigation of the Russia collusion hoax. The records were found in multiple “burn bags” in a previously undisclosed secret room at FBI headquarters.

Among the burn bag documents was the classified annex to former Special Counsel John Durham’s final report. This report allegedly contains crucial intelligence that could potentially lead to the convictions of many of the key conspirators in what has become known as Russiagate.

But this won’t happen unless FBI officials fully understand federal records management laws and regulations, and how they apply to these newfound agency documents.

Records that should Never Legally be Destroyed

In 2014, the Obama administration amended the Federal Records Act (FRA) to change the definition of a federal record to “all recorded information.” Overnight, this little-noticed change meant that every piece of recorded information created or received by the FBI must be managed throughout its lifecycle in an immutable format and preserved in a 36 CFR § 1236.20-compliant records repository as required by the FRA.

The government divides federal records into two categories, temporary and permanent. Temporary records make up the vast majority of agency records. By the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA’s) own estimates, more than 97 percent of all recorded agency information is temporary. This means that this information would never leave the agency, would be assigned a NARA-approved retention period, and at the end of that period — and only at the end of that period — the record would be forensically destroyed in compliance with federal law.

But given the historical significance of the Russiagate investigation, any federal record (i.e., recorded information) associated with the investigation into the Russia collusion hoax would be included in the less than 3 percent of FBI records that are considered permanent.

Permanent records are maintained at the agency for a NARA-approved retention period and then transferred to the National Archives to be preserved for as long as the Republic exists. Unlike temporary federal records, permanent records can never be legally destroyed.

Finally, according to NARA’s own rules, an analog printout of a digital federal record is not a valid representation of the record. This is true for many valid reasons, not the least of which are the paper record’s lack of associated metadata and the two-dimensionality of the paper record versus the three-dimensionality of the electronic record. 

Were Records Preserved Properly?

All of this brings up crucial questions about the Russiagate documents found in the secret room in the FBI’s headquarters. The first and most important question FBI leadership must ask is: Did the FBI preserve the original electronic versions of all of the burn bag documents in a 36 CFR § 1236.20-compliant records repository as required by the Federal Records Act?

As someone who has spent his entire career supporting federal records management at all levels of the government — including the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) — I can assure you that the answer to that question is no.

The next question then is this: Since the digital originals of the burn bag documents were not properly preserved in a certified records repository, where are they? If the creators of the electronic records cannot produce every original digital version of the burn bag records, this would imply the records were illegally destroyed in a coordinated Russiagate coverup. The legal implications of this would be staggering.  

Unfortunately, the converse of this is not much better. If the creators of the digital versions of the burn bag records are able to produce the originals, there will be no way to prove their authenticity, integrity, and provenance. Nor would there be a way to prove that other unidentified electronic records related to Russiagate have not been hidden or destroyed.

Worse still, such unreliable records would not be admissible in a judicial proceeding under the government’s own Federal Rules of Evidence. And convicting anyone at the FBI for Russiagate crimes based on these burn bag records would be virtually impossible.

Records Officer’s Suspicious Demotion

In November, national security strategist and bestselling author J. Michael Waller reported that NARA’s second-highest-ranking official, former Chief Records Officer Laurence Brewer, took a demotion in July 2024 to move to the DOJ to serve as the director of the DOJ’s Office of Records Management Policy.

Why would Brewer make such a move? Could it have been to support the destruction of Russiagate records that would be incriminating to the Obama and Biden administrations, while also lending credibility to the DOJ’s corrupt records management program, all in preparation for a potential return of Donald Trump to the White House the following January?

Could the hidden burn bag records be an FBI bureaucrat’s safety net in case the agency’s destruction of Russiagate records was uncovered? (If so, why would he or she go to the lengths of printing all of this material out instead of simply copying it to a single flash drive?)

Or could the burn bag printouts have been falsified documents planted by Obama loyalists intended to confirm Trump’s collusion with Russia?

All of these questions and many more need to be answered before the FBI, the DOJ, and the American people jump to any conclusions about this case.

Possible Crimes

If it is determined that the original electronic record versions of the burn bag documents were destroyed, the perpetrators are guilty of multiple federal records management crimes, including the following:

• 18 U.S. Code § 641 – Public money, property or records: Penalties include fines and up to one year in prison per record destroyed.
• 18 U.S. Code § 2071 – Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally: Penalties include fines and up to three years in prison per record destroyed.
• 18 U.S. Code § 1512 – Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant: Penalties include significant fines and up to 20 years in prison.

Ironically, the protestors who walked into the Capitol on January 6,2021, were convicted under 18 U.S. Code § 1512. They all had their lives ruined and their finances devastated. Many served time in prison. It would be the very definition of poetic justice if the corrupt FBI bureaucrats who destroyed Russia collusion hoax records were to be convicted under the same charge.

But that will never happen if the current FBI leadership does not determine if the original electronic records of the burn bag documents have been destroyed.