Robert Mueller hinted at the existence of an ongoing FBI counterintelligence investigations stemming from his inquiry into Russian election interference and possible Trump campaign involvement in 2016, although the former special counsel was sparse on details.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi brought up how earlier in the day Mueller described his report as “detailing a criminal investigation” and Mueller agreed with his characterization. The Democrat from Illinois said “since it was outside the purview of your investigation, your report did not reach counterintelligence conclusions regarding the subject matter of your report.”
“That’s true,” Mueller replied.
“For instance, since it was outside your purview, your report did not reach counterintelligence conclusions regarding any Trump administration officials who might potentially be vulnerable to compromise or blackmail by Russia, correct?” Krishnamoorthi asked.
Mueller indicated those determinations were likely made by the FBI and did not make it into his report because “we advert to the counterintelligence goals of our investigation which were secondary to any criminal wrongdoing that we could find.”
Moving on to “counterintelligence risks associated with lying,” Krishnamoorthi asked Mueller whether individuals could be blackmailed if they lie about their contacts with foreign nations. Mueller agreed.
“For example, you successfully charged former national security adviser Michael Flynn of lying to federal agents about his conversations with Russian officials, correct?” Krishnamoorthi asked.
Mueller agreed again.
“Since it was outside the purview of your investigation, your report did not address how Flynn’s false statements could pose a national security risk because the Russians knew the falsity of those statements, right?” Krishnamoorthi continued.
In what looked to be a confirmation of ongoing counterintelligence inquiries within the bureau, Mueller said he “cannot get into that mainly because there are many elements of the FBI that are looking at different aspects of that issue.”
“Currently?” Krishnamoorthi asked.
“Currently,” Mueller replied.
This coincides with Mueller’s opening statement to the committee. The former special counsel said that his office “structured our investigation around evidence for possible use in prosecution of federal crimes” and that they “did not reach what you would call ‘counterintelligence conclusions.’”
But Mueller did say that his office had “set up processes in the office to identify and pass counterintelligence information onto the FBI” and that “there were agents and analysts from the FBI who were not on our team, but whose job it was to identify counterintelligence information in our files and disseminate that information to the FBI.”
Mueller said that “for these reasons, questions about what the FBI has done with the counterintelligence information obtained from our investigation should be directed to the FBI.”
During his five minutes of quiestioning, Krishnamoorthi also pressed Mueller about possible counterintelligence problems related to actions that Trump himself had taken, pointing out that the only part of the report dealing with Trump’s financial dealings in Russia was the section on a prospective Trump Tower Moscow project. “Since it was outside your purview, your report does not address the question of whether Russian oligarchs engaged in money laundering through any of the president’s businesses, correct?” he asked.
Mueller agreed.
Krishnamoorthi asked whether Trump’s finances had been outside the scope of his investigation and whether he ever obtained Trump’s tax returns, and both times Mueller declined to answer. When Krishnamoorthi asked if Mueller ever was instructed not to investigate Trump’s personal finances, he said no.
Krishnamoorthi did what he could to present Trump’s statements as far back as 2016 as potentially compromising.
“As you noted in Volume II of your report, Donald Trump repeated five times in one press conference, Mr. Mueller, I 2016, ‘I have nothing to do with Russia.’” Krishnamoorthi said. “Of course, Michael Cohen said Donald Trump was not being truthful, because at this time Trump was attempting to build Trump Tower Moscow.”
“Your report does not address whether Donald Trump was compromised in any way because of any potential false statements that he made about Trump Tower Moscow, correct?” Krishnamoorthi asked.
Mueller said, “That’s right.”
The FBI told the Washington Examiner that, in keeping with its standard practice of neither confirming nor denying the existence of its investigations, it would not comment on the matter.
