Why now? Well, why not now? Mueller’s done, so as Trump said there’s no risk of getting charged with obstruction by exposing material his prosecutors might have needed to keep under wraps. The one problem there might still be is that the warrant application could reveal other sources and methods that should be kept quiet for a while longer, but careful redactions should protect what really needs to be protected.
Actually, that still leaves a couple of other problems. Will a document with too many redactions help Trump make his case? The redactions could lead to speculation that the warrant had more bases for issuance than just the Steele dossier and testimony from allegedly biased FBI agents. Another problem might be that there’s not much in the warrant application to explain what happened. It could turn out to be a Mueller nothingburger for the Right — a lot of anticipation followed by a letdown in the event itself. One would think that Trump would be downplaying it if that were the case, but maybe he figures he’ll never get it fully declassified in the first place. That would be pernicious demagoguery, but we’ve seen plenty of that from all sides on this issue.
The Steele dossier might get more attention from the Senate. Rand Paul wants to haul former CIA director John Brennan back to Congress to get answers as to his involvement in the Steele dossier, which might be a lot more substantial than previously thought: