All eyes are on Robert Mueller. In May, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed the former FBI Director as special counsel to oversee the Department of Justice’s Russia investigation. Here we explain what powers and tools he has at his disposal, what the different outcomes could be when he completes the investigation, and how his work fits in with the other inquiries into Russian interference in the 2016 election.… continue »
President Donald Trump took to Twitter Tuesday morning to condemn former Attorney General Loretta Lynch for requesting special treatment for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.
The move follows former FBI Director James Comey’s Senate testimony last Thursday, when he made the disturbing allegation that Lynch, a Democratic political appointee, asked him to refer to the FBI probe into Clinton’s handling of classified information as a “matter” rather than an “investigation,” presumably in order to minimize the damage to her public image.… continue »
In a recent analysis for Just Security, I explored some concerns about how warrantless surveillance under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”) may be undermining the U.S. criminal justice system. While many of those concerns would apply to the government’s potential reliance on warrantless Section 702 data as part of any criminal probe, I expressed a worry that such data might conceivably be making its way into investigations of relatively low-level suspected offenses (for example, suspected drug-related violations).… continue »
THE PRESS
This week saw an alarming uptick in hostility toward the press, something Donald Trump has encouraged first as a candidate and now as the president.
Greg Gianforte, a Republican candidate in a special House election in Montana, was charged with assaulting a journalist. … continue »
The news that retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor and campaign aide, has refused to comply with a Senate Intelligence Committee subpoena for documents raises the question of when witnesses may lawfully resist subpoenas for testimony or documents based on Fifth Amendment grounds, which is the basis cited by Flynn’s lawyer.… continue »
The news yesterday that Donald Trump asked the Director of National Intelligence, Daniel Coats, and the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael Rogers, to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign to influence the presidential election may, or may not, contribute to the overall emerging picture of obstruction of justice by the president.… continue »
In many respects, we’re all in the dark when it comes to the ongoing Russia investigations. Behind closed doors, what are congressional and FBI investigators learning? What new leads are being chased? Who in Donald Trump’s orbit is under the microscope?… continue »
James Comey really is the master of the contemporaneous record. He’s been laying down a breadcrumb trail of clues about what’s going on behind the scenes not just in his memos, but also in his public statements.
On May 3rd, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on FBI oversight, Sen.… continue »
There has been considerable discussion over the last week about whether President Donald Trump committed the crime of obstruction of justice when he fired James Comey as director of the FBI. Caution has been important in this debate because obstruction of justice is a difficult crime to prove, the beyond a reasonable doubt standard for criminal prosecution is an onerous one, and not all the facts are known.… continue »
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TRUMP FIRES COMEY
On Tuesday, in what was arguably his “most significant action” as president, Trump fired FBI director James Comey. Since FBI directors almost always serve 10-year terms, the abrupt termination raised concerns that it was motivated by Trump’s desire to obstruct the investigation into whether his campaign colluded with Russia to interfere with the 2016 election.… continue »
