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New Subpoenas Issued in Election Probe 02/18 06:10
The Justice Department has issued new subpoenas in a Florida-based
investigation into perceived adversaries of President Donald Trump and the U.S.
government's response to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential
election, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Justice Department has issued new subpoenas in a
Florida-based investigation into perceived adversaries of President Donald
Trump and the U.S. government's response to Russian interference in the 2016
presidential election, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
An initial wave of subpoenas in November asked recipients for documents
related to the preparation of a U.S. intelligence community assessment that
detailed a sweeping, multiprong effort by Moscow to help Trump defeat
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
Though the first subpoenas requested documents from the months surrounding
the January 2017 publication of the Obama administration intelligence
assessment, the latest subpoenas seek any records from the years since then,
said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press to
discuss a nonpublic demand from investigators.
The Justice Department declined to comment Tuesday.
The subpoenas represent continued investigative activity in one of several
criminal inquiries the Justice Department has undertaken into Trump's political
opponents. An array of former intelligence and law enforcement officials have
received subpoenas and lawyers for former CIA Director John Brennan, who helped
oversee the drafting of the assessment, have said they have been informed he is
a target but have not been told of any "legally justifiable basis for
undertaking this investigation."
The intelligence community assessment, published in the final days of the
Obama administration, found that Russia had developed a "clear preference" for
Trump in the 2016 election and that Russian President Vladimir Putin had
ordered an influence campaign with goals of undermining confidence in American
democracy and harming Clinton's chance for victory.
That conclusion -- and a related investigation into whether the 2016 Trump
campaign colluded with Russia to sway the outcome of the election -- have long
been among the Republican president's chief grievances, and he has vowed
retribution against the government officials involved in the inquiries. Former
FBI Director James Comey was indicted by the Trump administration Justice
Department last year on false statement and obstruction charges, but the case
was later dismissed.
Multiple government reports, including bipartisan congressional reviews and
a criminal investigation by former special counsel Robert Mueller, have found
that Russia interfered in Trump's favor through a hack-and-leak operation of
Democratic emails as well as a covert social media campaign aimed at sowing
discord and swaying American public opinion. Mueller's report found that the
Trump campaign actively welcomed the Russian help, but it did not establish
that Russian operatives and Trump or his associates conspired to tip the
election in his favor.
The Trump administration has freshly scrutinized the intelligence community
assessment in part because a classified version of it incorporated in its annex
a summary of the "Steele dossier," a compilation of Democratic-funded
opposition research that was assembled by former British spy Christopher Steele
and was provided to the FBI. That research into Trump's potential links to
Russia included uncorroborated rumors and salacious gossip, and Trump has long
held up its weaknesses in an effort to discredit the entire Russia
investigation.
The investigation in Florida appears to be part of a broader administration
effort to revisit years-old findings and decisions from the Russia
investigation.
A declassified CIA tradecraft review released last July by current Director
John Ratcliffe did not refute the conclusion of Russian election interference
but found "multiple procedural anomalies" in the intelligence community
assessment and chided Brennan for the fact that the classified version
referenced the Steele dossier.
Brennan testified to Congress, and also wrote in his memoir, that he was
opposed to including information from the dossier in the intelligence
assessment since neither its substance nor sources had been validated, and he
has said the dossier did not inform the judgments of the assessment. He
maintains the FBI pushed for its inclusion.
The new CIA review sought to cast Brennan's views in a different light,
asserting that he "showed a preference for narrative consistency over
analytical soundness" and brushed aside concerns over the dossier because he
believed it conformed "with existing theories." It quotes him, without context,
as having stated in writing that "my bottomline is that I believe that the
information warrants inclusion in the report."
It is unclear whether the investigation in Florida will result in any
criminal charges.
In a letter last December addressed to the chief judge of the Southern
District of Florida, Brennan's lawyers challenged the underpinnings of the
investigation, questioning what basis prosecutors had for opening the inquiry
in the state and saying they had received no clarity from prosecutors about
what potential crimes were even being investigated.
"While it is mystifying how the prosecutors could possibly believe there is
any legally justifiable basis for undertaking this investigation, they have
done nothing to explain that mystery," the lawyers wrote, describing the
investigation as "manufactured."
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