Jason Leopold, Anthony Cormier, Emma Loop, and Ellie Hall at BuzzFeed News:

BuzzFeed News has obtained some of the most important and highly sought-after documents from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation: summaries of FBI interviews with key White House officials.

[Read the documents here. Some key takeaways are below.]

The 356 pages of documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, were the subject of a protracted legal dispute between the Justice Department and the House Judiciary Committee, which sought them over the summer as part of its impeachment inquiry. The committee had requested access to an unredacted copy of the Mueller report, grand jury testimony from the investigation, and the FBI’s summaries of 33 interviews. Justice Department officials resisted, claiming the impeachment inquiry does not entitle the panel to see those records. A federal judge disagreed, ruling in October that “DOJ is wrong” and that the White House and the Justice Department were “openly stonewalling” the committee.

In the documents released Thursday, the FBI and Justice Department withheld vast swaths of information under a number of FOIA exemptions — including one that says the disclosure of information would interfere with ongoing investigations. They also withheld information from these records claiming disclosure would threaten national security.

Jason Leopold, Anthony Cormier, Kate Nocera, Ellie Hall, Sarah Mimms, and Emma Loop at BuzzFeed News:

The report from former special counsel Robert Mueller, detailing Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and the Trump administration’s efforts to obstruct the inquiry, was the most hotly anticipated prosecutorial document in a generation. But at 448 pages, it reflected only a tiny fraction of the primary-source documents that the government amassed over the course of its two-year investigation.

Using the Freedom of Information Act, BuzzFeed News, and later CNN, sued to gain access to those documents, which are key to understanding this important chapter in American history.

On Monday, in response to a court order, the Justice Department released the second installment: summaries of FBI interviews spanning hundreds of pages. These summaries, known as “302 reports,” are some of the most important and highly sought-after documents from Mueller’s investigation. They contain numerous redactions, which BuzzFeed News will challenge in our ongoing lawsuit.

Jason Leopold, Anthony Cormier, Zoe Tillman, Emma Loop, and Ellie Hall at BuzzFeed News: 

Paul Manafort was pushing the unfounded conspiracy theory — now part of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump — that Ukraine hacked the Democratic National Committee's emails as early as 2016.

The president’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, "had to keep Trump out of the messaging related to Russia” in preparation for his testimony to Congress under oath and that the false testimony was "not his idea."

Top Trump campaign aide Rick Gates said the campaign was “very happy” when a foreign government helped release the hacked DNC emails.

These are some of the revelations that BuzzFeed News pried loose after pursuing five separate Freedom of Information Act lawsuits for all the subpoenas and search warrants that then–special counsel Robert Mueller’s team executed, as well as all the emails, memos, letters, talking points, legal opinions, and interview transcripts it generated.

In response to a court order, the Justice Department released the first installment of documents: hundreds of pages of summaries of FBI interviews with witnesses, available here for the first time. Another installment will be released every month for at least the next eight years.

The documents revealed Saturday, known as “302 reports,” are summaries of interviews with former White House official and Trump campaign manager Stephen Bannon, Cohen, Gates, and more. They are some of the most important and highly sought-after documents from Mueller’s investigation. They reveal what key players in the campaign told FBI agents about Russia, Trump, the email hack during the 2016 presidential campaign, and Trump's associates’ handling of the special counsel’s investigation.

Mueller’s 448-page report last March was the most hotly anticipated prosecutorial document in a generation, laying out the evidence of Russia's interference in the 2016 election and the Trump administration’s efforts to obstruct the inquiry. The report, however, reflected only a small fraction of the billions of primary-source documents that the government claims Mueller’s team may have amassed over the course of its two-year investigation.

Document, via Document Cloud.