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| Dammit! Comey said I wasn't being investigated! |
The special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice, officials said.
The move by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to investigate Trump’s conduct marks a major turning point in the nearly year-old FBI investigation, which until recently focused on Russian meddling during the presidential campaign and on whether there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Investigators have also been looking for any evidence of possible financial crimes among Trump associates, officials said.
Trump had received private assurances from then-FBI Director James B. Comey starting in January that he was not personally under investigation. Officials say that changed shortly after Comey’s firing.
Five people briefed on the interview requests, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said that Daniel Coats, the current director of national intelligence, Mike Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, and Rogers’s recently departed deputy, Richard Ledgett, agreed to be interviewed by Mueller’s investigators as early as this week. The investigation has been cloaked in secrecy, and it is unclear how many others have been questioned by the FBI.
According to the article this investigation actually started right after Trump fired James Comey, which was even BEFORE they appointed Robert Mueller to be the Special Counsel.
This also means that while Comey was testifying in that Senate hearing regarding his assurances to Trump that he was not under investigation he must have been using every bit of his self control not to break into a huge smile knowing that was no longer the case.
The article also reasserts this from earlier reporting:
Officials said one of the exchanges of potential interest to Mueller took place on March 22, less than a week after Coats was confirmed by the Senate to serve as the nation’s top intelligence official.
Coats was attending a briefing at the White House with officials from several other government agencies. When the briefing ended, as The Washington Post previously reported, Trump asked everyone to leave the room except for Coats and CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
Coats told associates that Trump had asked him whether Coats could intervene with Comey to get the bureau to back off its focus on former national security adviser Michael Flynn in its Russia probe, according to officials. Coats later told lawmakers that he never felt pressured to intervene.
A day or two after the March 22 meeting, Trump telephoned Coats and Rogers to separately ask them to issue public statements denying the existence of any evidence of coordination between his campaign and the Russian government.
Coats and Rogers refused to comply with the president’s requests, officials said.
That is obstruction of justice, plain and simple.
Well so much for the GOP talking points that the president himself is not under criminal investigation, because oh yes he is!
And Trump is seriously pissed off about it:
They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2017
No no, I saw the greatest witch hunt in American political history during those Benghazi hearings.You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history - led by some very bad and conflicted people! #MAGA— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2017
But nice try.
What do you want to bet that now Trump will try to find a way to fire Robert Mueller insuring that this investigation gets turned up to eleven?
So now the president chosen for us by a foreign government is being investigated for attempting to obstruct an investigation into that fact, because he fired the guy leading that initial investigation, while his party scrambles to survive the scandal of his presidency.
Even the current season of House of Cards did not have quite this much political intrigue and drama.
Source http://ift.tt/2ruXqc3
