Adam Schiff Asks IG To Investigate If Trump Squashed Reported Counter Intel Probe Into His Finances
According to New York Times reporter Michael S. Schmidt, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler are up to their old tricks again.
Schmidt wrote, “Missed this – Last Wednesday, House Ds (Nadler, Maloney, Schiff) asked DOJ IG and Intel Community IG to investigate whatever happened to the counterintelligence investigation into Trump and whether Trump and/or White House pressured DOJ to kill it.”
Adam’s letter says, “We write to urge you to review the decisions and circumstances surrounding the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s reported counterintelligence investigation of President Donald J. Trump and his foreign financial contacts, including whether they did not pursue or were prevented from completing such investigation.
Recent reporting has revealed that President Trump’s company generated tens of millions of dollars in overseas revenue during his first two years in office and is hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, a significant portion of which is personally guaranteed by the President, and that he held foreign bank accounts—including with an unidentified Chinese bank.
The President’s foreign financial entanglements and liabilities give rise to serious counterintelligence concerns that warrant investigation. Recent reports indicate that neither the FBI nor the Special Counsel’s office ever conducted a comprehensive investigation of these matters.
It is imperative that your offices determine whether the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI have examined the counterintelligence risks arising from the President’s finances. In particular, we urge you to examine whether President Trump or other White House officials improperly pressured or influenced DOJ or the FBI not to move forward with a counterintelligence investigation of President Trump and his foreign financial ties and liabilities.
In May 2017, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein appointed Special Counsel Mueller to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.”
The Special Counsel’s mandate included “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.”
Yet, on August 30, 2020, the New York Times reported: “Within days, the former deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein curtailed the [counterintelligence] investigation without telling the bureau, all but ensuring it would go nowhere.”
According to Andrew G. McCabe, who was serving as Acting Director of the FBI at the time, Mr. Rosenstein never informed him of this 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.”
According to Mr. McCabe, he was “surprised” and “disappointed” to learn that the Special Counsel did not undertake a thorough counterintelligence inquiry:
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. I expected that issue and issues related to it would be fully examined by the special counsel team.
Other reports have raised questions about whether improper political interference may have prevented the FBI and Special Counsel from pursuing a counterintelligence investigation of President Trump’s finances. For example, according to Andrew Weissman, who served as a prosecutor on the Special Counsel’s staff, the White House reportedly called Mr. Mueller’s office after subpoenas were issued to Deutsche Bank in 2017 and “demanded to know what investigators were doing, and Mr. Mueller authorized [Deputy Special Counsel] Mr. [Aaron] Zebley to tell the White House that they had not been seeking Mr. Trump’s financial information.”
According to Mr. Weissman, “At that point, any financial investigation of Trump was put on hold. … That is, we backed down—the issue was simply too incendiary; the risk, too severe.”
In addition, when President Trump was asked during a July 2017 interview whether scrutiny of his finances would constitute a “red line” for Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation, President Trump responded, “I would say yeah. I would say yes.”
There is substantial evidence of ties between President Trump’s campaign, private business interests, and foreign powers that further support the need for a counterintelligence investigation of the President’s finances.
The letter drones on and ends with:
The American people deserve to know whether the Trump Administration may have deliberately sought to shield the President from a thorough counterintelligence inquiry of his finances at the expense of our national security. To that end, we urge to you examine the decisions and circumstances surrounding the FBI and Special Counsel’s Office’s reported counterintelligence investigation into President Trump’s finances, including whether any entity chose not to pursue or was prevented from completing a thorough investigation. In your review, please address the following questions:
Was a counterintelligence investigation ever opened with a scope that included the President’s foreign financial ties?
Is the counterintelligence investigation ongoing?
If closed, what circumstances led this investigation to be curtailed or closed?
If closed, was there political interference in the process of pursuing, curtailing, or closing the examination of or investigation of the President’s finances from either within or outside DOJ?
Were the national security concerns that justified the counterintelligence investigation satisfactorily addressed?
Do the Department’s regulations governing the Office of Special Counsel adequately address processes related to investigations with a counterintelligence component? Please respond by November 6, 2020, to confirm that your offices intend to open this review.”
Missed this .. Last Wednesday, House Ds (Nadler, Maloney, Schiff) asked DOJ IG and Intel Community IG to investigate whatever happened to the counter intelligence investigation into Trump and whether Trump and/or White House pressured DOJ to kill it https://t.co/llleFC1xQn
— Michael S. Schmidt (@nytmike) November 3, 2020