Amid allegations of misbehavior by the FBI in the
investigation of several members of Donald Trump’s campaign staff in 2016, the
Department of Justice has asked the Inspector General to investigate the
investigators. The new probe will look into whether FBI agents responding to
reports that Trump staffers were attempting to work with Russian agents in 2016
acted inappropriately themselves.
“The Department has asked the Inspector General to expand the
ongoing review of the FISA application process to include determining whether
there was any impropriety or political motivation in how the FBI conducted its
counterintelligence investigation of persons suspected of involvement with the
Russian agents who interfered in the 2016 presidential election,” a DOJ
spokesman said in a statement.
The announcement of the FBI probe comes a day after
President Trump demanded in a tweet
that the DOJ “look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled
the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes [sic].” The president also charged
the DOJ with investigating whether members of the Obama Administration made “any
such demands or requests.”
The president’s demand follows on news over the weekend that
a retired American college professor with deep ties to US and British
intelligence was an FBI informant that corroborated other reports about the
Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. The Washington
Post reported over the weekend that it had identified the informant, but
was not publishing his name. President Trump accused the FBI of planting an “FBI
representative” in his campaign for “political purposes,” but the Post notes
that there is no evidence that the informant was planted by the FBI.
The informant was subsequently identified by the New
York Post as Stefan Halper, a retired Cambridge professor who previously
worked for the Nixon, Ford and Reagan Administrations. Halper reportedly met
with Carter Page in July 2016. Page had previously been the subject of a FISA
surveillance warrant as early
as 2014. In August, Halper met with
Trump campaign co-chair Sam Clovis and contacted George Papadopoulos by email.
Supporters of the president charge that the FBI
investigation of members of the Trump campaign was politically motivated, but
there are several problems with this theory. The first is that Page and
Manafort first attracted the attention of counterintelligence agencies long
before they joined Team Trump. Second, even though the investigation into the
Trump dossier and other Russian contacts by the Trump camp was underway well
before the election, the allegations of a Trump-Russia conspiracy were not made
public prior to the election, when they would have done the most harm to the
Trump campaign. Instead, the Comey
memo to Congress on October 28 alleged possible wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton
and arguably cost
her the election. These facts do not fit the narrative of an attempt by the
FBI to sink the Trump campaign.
The Trump Administration’s criticism of the FBI hinges on
the assumption that the investigation was political rather than a legitimate
counterintelligence probe. So far, there seems to be no evidence to support
that claim. If the FBI judged that the reports of an attempt to conspire with
the Russians were credible, they would not have been doing their job if they
had not launched an investigation.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the
Mueller investigation, told NBC
News, “If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential
campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take
appropriate action.”
The accusations that the FBI broke the law in investigating
members of the Trump campaign are serious and need to be treated as such.
President Trump has used the FBI and DOJ as a foil for his frustrations with
the ongoing Mueller investigation and accusations that his administration
conspired with Putin to throw the election. The president’s claims need to be investigated
to avoid undermining public faith in the agency and the government at large.
Given Mr. Trump’s track record of dubious claims, however, he
is unlikely to be satisfied with the results. The core problem is that Donald
Trump hired campaign staffers who were compromised by the Russians. The
president’s own son met
with a Russian lawyer because he thought she had information that would
damage the Clinton campaign. It is difficult to look at the allegations about
Trump’s staffers and say that the FBI should have done nothing.
Originally Posted on The Resurgent
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