A top prosecutor on former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team dismissed the idea that he would have any relevant information for U.S. Attorney John Durham.
Andrew Weissmann, a former FBI general counsel and Justice Department official, also told CBS News on Wednesday that he has not been subpoenaed by the federal prosecutor tasked by Attorney General William Barr to review the Russia investigation.
“I have not been subpoenaed, and I don’t anticipate it. But I’m happy to give any information I have,” Weissmann said. “I don’t think, given what I understand he’s looking at, which is the genesis of the Russia investigation, which I was involved in. I don’t suspect that I’m going to have particularly relevant information.”
Weissmann has been in the news lately not only because he has a new book out and has been criticizing some decisions in the special counsel investigation, but also because documents that were released showing devices belonging to members of Mueller‘s team were “wiped” for various reasons. Weissmann, in particular, is being scrutinized for wiping data from two government-issued phones. Notes from March 3, 2018, said that he “entered password too many times and wiped his phone,” and notes on Sept. 27, 2018, indicated that he “accidentally wiped cell phone — data lost.”
“I know I didn’t, and I’m confident that my colleagues didn’t either,” Weissmann said when asked this month by MSNBC host Ari Melber whether he did anything improper with his phone while on the Mueller team. Weissmann is now a legal analyst on the cable news network, a platform he often used to critique the Justice Department’s actions.
Weissmann declared on Wednesday that the information on his devices should be backed up somewhere.
“One of the things I really wish the department would put out there — was all of the ways in which we had backup systems, and so everything that might be on a phone was backed up on our computers. So, I don’t think we lost any data whatsoever,” Weissmann said, noting that he wrote in his book that the Mueller team was so concerned about preserving records that it ensured the information was up in “numerous locations” in the Justice Department and in the courts.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham floated an invitation for Weissmann on Wednesday after noting that Mueller had declined his invitation to testify. Graham stressed that not one member of President Trump’s team was “charged with colluding with the Russians” as part of the special counsel inquiry that ended in the spring of 2019.
Mueller released a rare statement on Tuesday to defend the Russia investigation after Weissmann has opened up about his frustrations with the special counsel investigation, claiming it “absolutely” let people down. In particular, he said Mueller’s team erred in choosing not to subpoena Trump to testify and not reaching a decision on whether Trump obstructed justice.
Mueller, a former FBI director, stood by the special counsel team’s work. “It is not surprising that members of the Special Counsel’s Office did not always agree, but it is disappointing to hear criticism of our team based on incomplete information,” he wrote.
William Barnett, the FBI agent who handled the Flynn case in 2016 and 2017, was interviewed by the Justice Department earlier this month and revealed that he doubted that retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn had committed any crimes. He also said that he and others did not dismiss the possibility of Trump-Russia collusion and that he thought certain FBI investigators, as well as the special counsel’s office prosecutors such as Weissmann, were single-minded as well as overly aggressive in their tactics in going after people in Trump’s orbit, including Flynn.
“Barnett thought there was a ‘get Trump’ attitude by some at the SCO,” the FBI wrote this month.
Mueller’s 2019 report said that Russians interfered in the 2016 election in a “sweeping and systematic fashion,” but the special counsel’s team “did not establish” criminal conspiracy between Russians and anyone in Trump’s circle.
