Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein narrowed the scope of the FBI investigation into President Donald Trump's ties to Russia in 2017, The New York Times reported Sunday.
Rosenstein's move to protect the president from an investigation into his ties to Russia, particularly related to finances, came without explanation, per the report.
"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," former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe told the Post.
"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."
The revelations came in a new book by CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, "True Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Investigation of Donald Trump."
"I love Ken Starr, but his investigation was a fishing expedition," Rosenstein told Special Counsel Robert Mueller, according to Toobin's book. "Don't do that. This is a criminal investigation. Do your job, and then shut it down."
If Mueller wanted to expand the investigation, per the report, he was to request Rosenstein do so. It ostensibly shut down a counterintelligence investigation of potential national security concerns with Trump's Russia ties.
"It was first and foremost a counterintelligence case," McCabe told the Times. "Could the president actually be the point of coordination between the campaign and the Russian government? Could the president actually be maintaining some sort of inappropriate relationship with our most significant adversary in the world?"
McCabe left the FBI believing Mueller's team was conducting the counterintelligence investigation, per the report.
Rosenstein did not tell McCabe of the limitations on the Mueller investigation, because he feared McCabe's "conflicts of interest," per the report. McCabe's wife Jill McCabe ran for office as a Democrat at the request of a Hillary Clinton ally, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, Law & Crime reported.
Special prosecutors are generally appointed to conduct criminal investigations and not counterintelligence investigations. An FBI counterintelligence investigation into the sitting U.S. president might have been particularly problematic, particularly if it was being pushed by his political opposition working within the administration.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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