The four pages reflect bureau brainstorming about how to approach the Trump adviser’s contacts with the Russian ambassador.
Newly released documents about the origins of the criminal case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn show that FBI officials feared that the new Trump White House might view the bureau as “playing games” if it sought to interview him without disclosing exactly what it was up to.
“If we’re seen as playing games, WH will be furious,” the notes say. “Protect our institution by not playing games.” However, they appear to bear the initials of E.W. “Bill“ Priestap, the head of the FBI‘s counterintelligence division at the time, and relate to a meeting with the bureau‘s then-deputy director, Andrew McCabe. McCabe was the one who ultimately called Flynn that day to ask him to meet with two FBI agents, Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka.
According to the FBI’s official reports on the interview, the bureau’s agents never confronted Flynn with the intercepts during the session, although the then-national security adviser indicated that the FBI probably knew what had transpired. Nevertheless, Flynn denied discussing U.S. sanctions against Russia with Kislyak.
“Admin’s economic emphasis could be good for our CI [counterintelligence] efforts,” a sentence scrawled at the top margin of the handwritten page says. Supporters of the Mueller investigation said the documents contained no earth-shattering revelations and failed to demonstrate that the FBI unethically unleashed a “perjury trap“ for Flynn or that prosecutors withheld critical evidence Flynn‘s attorneys were entitled to under a half-century-old Supreme Court case, Brady v. U.S.
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