Justice Dept. Never Fully Examined Trump's Ties to Russia, Ex-Officials Say

[Mrs. Overall]

Source: New York Times

The Justice Department secretly took steps in 2017 to narrow the investigation into Russian election interference and any links to the Trump campaign, according to former law enforcement officials, keeping investigators from completing an examination of President Trump’s decades-long personal and business ties to Russia.

The special counsel who finished the investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, secured three dozen indictments and convictions of some top Trump advisers, and he produced a report that outlined Russia’s wide-ranging operations to help get Mr. Trump elected and the president’s efforts to impede the inquiry.

But law enforcement officials never fully investigated Mr. Trump’s own relationship with Russia, even though some career F.B.I. counterintelligence investigators thought his ties posed such a national security threat that they took the extraordinary step of opening an inquiry into them. Within days, the former deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein curtailed the investigation without telling the bureau, all but ensuring it would go nowhere.

A bipartisan report by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee released this month came the closest to an examination of the president’s links to Russia. Senators depicted extensive ties between Trump associates and Russia, identified a close associate of a former Trump campaign chairman as a Russian intelligence officer and outlined how allegations about Mr. Trump’s encounters with women during trips to Moscow could be used to compromise him. But the senators acknowledged they lacked access to the full picture, particularly any insight into Mr. Trump’s finances.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/us/politics/trump-russia-justice-department.html

[Me.]

1. No Doubt He Has Betrayed His Country

and will further sell it to Putin if the price is right

[dlk]

2. Republicans investigating Republicans; what could possibly go wrong?

They have shown us over and over who they really are. It’s long past time to believe them.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. JFC This country

squeezed out socialists with the Red Scare, prosecuted global wars and a Cold War, captured spies on both sides, fought communism and for oil reserves, and went after terrorists, they couldn't keep fascists out of power and investigate them in power?

[Botany]

4. "Within days, the former deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein curtailed the investigation ..."

Mother Fucker! And I was taken in by Rod's act too. In an interview he talked about how he
was guided by the rule of law and not the rule by politics. He pointed to a picture of a former
A.G. who had stood up to FDR and said his policies were unconstitutional but it was an act.
Another republican more than willing to sell out America to Russia and the GOP.

[LiberalLovinLug]

5. Of course they didn't

IF, and its still a big IF, Biden can win over all the machinations that are going to try and steal it for Trump, will this investigation be allowed to continue? Or will it be more of "look forward, not backward"? Gawd I yearn for a day when Trump is exposed as the traitor he is.

[BigmanPigman]

9. Good question.

I wonder what team tRump will destroy before leaving office. All this super secret notes from the Helsinki meeting, etc are all in there.

[lark]

6. Rosenstein is yet another repug traitor to America.

Biden needs to fire his ass he day after he takes office along with all the other embedded rw traitors.

[dalton99a]

7. Kick

[riversedge]

11. makes me sick to look at that photo.

[hedda_foil]

8. A bit more

Mr. Rosenstein concluded the F.B.I. lacked sufficient reason to conduct an investigation into the president’s links to a foreign adversary. Mr. Rosenstein determined that the investigators were acting too hastily in response to the firing days earlier of James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, and he suspected that the acting bureau director who approved the opening of the inquiry, Andrew G. McCabe, had conflicts of interest.

Mr. Rosenstein never told Mr. McCabe about his decision, leaving the F.B.I. with the impression that the special counsel would take on the investigation into the president as part of his broader duties. Mr. McCabe said in an interview that had he known Mr. Mueller would not continue the inquiry, he would have had the F.B.I. perform it.

“We opened this case in May 2017 because we had information that indicated a national security threat might exist, specifically a counterintelligence threat involving the president and Russia,” Mr. McCabe said. “I expected that issue and issues related to it would be fully examined by the special counsel team. If a decision was made not to investigate those issues, I am surprised and disappointed. I was not aware of that.”

[riversedge]

10. Trump looks half asleep in the photo from the article..........

Link to tweet

?s=20

[agincourt]

12. Basically I thought the way the investigation was set up

Trump would have to write personal checks to Guccifer 2.0 to maybe get in trouble. Too much hope was placed in a limited investigation. People thought Manafort going down was significant, but people like him are there to take the dive.

[cilla4progress]

13. Confused about this story.

Last edited Mon Aug 31, 2020, 01:15 PM - Edit history (2)

Peter Baker also has a story out about this in NY Times today.

Over the weekend, Andrew Weissman said critical pieces were not true.

Link to tweet

?s=19

Link to tweet

?s=19

Link to tweet

?s=20


Recall, Weissmann is one of the good guys...on our side, essentially (he was one of Mueller's investigators).