FBI agent William Barnett slammed the Trump-Russia collusion inquiry as “opaque” and described it as having little detail concerning specific criminal events during an interview last week at the Justice Department, according to Fox News.
Michael Flynn speaks during a news conference at the White House in 2017. Carolyn Kaster/AP. An FBI official who worked on former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election believed some investigators had a “get Trump” attitude and that the probe was a “dead end,” according to a report.
Barnett’s requests to interview the soon-to-be national security adviser were denied, and the investigation was described as “top down,” meaning that “direction concerning the investigation was coming from senior officials.”
The first, he said, was that “incidents involving Trump were taken in the most negative manner, or in some cases misinterpreted.” The second was how members of Mueller’s top team appeared to try to establish “the conviction there was ‘something criminal there’ and a competition as to which attorney was going to find it.”
Michael Flynn speaks during a news conference at the White House in 2017. Carolyn Kaster/AP
Former Justice Department official Andrew Weissmann, who has since endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, said the former special counsel “absolutely” let the American people down by not going harder on President Trump.
Barnett disagreed, according to the 302, telling investigators he believed Flynn’s position as an incoming Trump administration official “offered an opportunity for the FBI to conduct the interview without alerting any suspicion and Flynn would see such an interview as being standard procedure.”
Elijah Cummings, D-Md., speaks while aides hold up posters of people who have entered guilty pleas in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election before Peter Strzok, then deputy assistant director of the FBI, testified at a hearing on Capitol Hill on July 12, 2018. Joshua Roberts / Reuters file
WASHINGTON — He was the FBI agent so central to the Trump-Russia investigation that he came up with the code name: Crossfire Hurricane, from the lyrics of a Rolling Stones song that happened to be in his head.
That's why Strzok and his FBI colleagues took the historic step of opening a counterintelligence investigation into Trump after he fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017 — an investigation Strzok says he earlier had opposed. Comey's firing also led to the appointment of Mueller, a former director of the FBI, as special counsel.
In his report, Mueller said he couldn't find enough evidence to bring criminal charges alleging such a conspiracy, even as he punted on the question of whether Trump obstructed justice. Whether crimes were committed is a different question from whether Russia had a hold over the president, however.
A recent assessment by the House Intelligence Committee, which has sought classified briefings on the matter, says the FBI " has not investigated counterintelligence risks arising from President Trump's foreign financial ties.".
But Mueller never did answer the question of whether Trump was "compromised" by Russia — he never even tried to, according to the massive report he issued describing his findings.
The conspiracy theory put forth by Trump and his allies — that a group of rogue law enforcement officials set out to frame him — is refuted in the book by Strzok's methodical explanations of the FBI's decisions in the face of disturbing evidence.
Trump sent out more than a dozen tweets about Flynn, saying he was wronged and attacking FBI leadership, including former Director James Come y. "What happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen of the United States again!". Trump tweeted Thursday morning.
The documents turned over to Flynn's lawyers are the first public results of a reexamination requested by Attorney General William Barr, and they represent a more complicated position for the department than what it's previously said in court.
Flynn's lies about his conversations with Kislyak prompted his exit from the White House less than a month later. The situation eventually spiraled into the President firing Comey after he pressured Comey to go easy on Flynn, which became a crucial part of the Mueller investigation.
Lawyers for Flynn, who pleaded guilty late in 2017 to lying to the FBI about conversations with Russia's ambassador, said they believe the document, along with others, supports their accusations of investigative misconduct.
After the election in late 2016, Flynn spoke to then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak on the phone, requesting for Russia not to react harshly to US sanctions and to oppose the Obama administration in an upcoming United Nations vote on Israel. He had discussed the calls with Trump transition officials. When FBI agents asked him about the calls in ...
It's typical for the FBI to plot out how they may conduct an interview in advance, and the documents released Wednesday show the FBI discussing whether they should warn Flynn in advance that lying could be prosecuted and whether to confront him if he lied. Roger Stone to appeal guilty verdict, denial of new trial.
Within hours of its release, the note sent the President and his supporters into a furor on Twitter, while criminal defense lawyers and FBI alumni said they were making too much of the agency's preparation for the Flynn interview, in which the national security adviser lied to the FBI, a crime he later admitted to in court multiple times.