iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — The FBI investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election began last summer, after experts traced a series of hacks into the Democratic National Committee and the private email account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman to Russia.
Comey confirmed the existence of the investigation during an appearance before Congress in March. He told members of the House Intelligence Committee he had been authorized by the Department of Justice to reveal that the FBI, “as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”
Counterintelligence investigations are undertaken largely in secret and can utilize a range of government tools, including secret recordings, intelligence gathered by spies overseas, and information shared from friendly foreign governments. Based on the limited information available, this investigation appears to be no different.
Late in 2016, however, Sen. John McCain is reported to have given then-FBI Director James Comey a copy of a series of memos about Russian meddling in the campaign prepared by a former British counterintelligence official who was working as a private consultant. The memos, later made public by Buzzfeed, included raw intelligence on possible contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian agents, and suggested that the Russian government had made compromising videos of Donald Trump during a visit the real estate tycoon made to Moscow in 2013. Some of the most sensational claims in the dossier remain unverified.
The probe into Russian meddling is being run jointly by agents at FBI headquarters in Washington and those based in the Eastern District of Virginia who are under the watch of U.S. Attorney Dana J. Boente, who is also the Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice’s National Security Division. The agents have reportedly been assisted by intelligence experts from several agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency.
The agents are reportedly looking at the movements and activities of several Trump associates and campaign aides, including Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, his first National Security Advisor, Gen. Michael Flynn, his longtime friend Roger Stone, and a low-level foreign policy advisor, Carter Page. As ABC News reported earlier this year, Page’s name had surfaced on recordings in a previous FBI spy case in New York, and he was alleged at the time to have been targeted by Russian agents who were recruiting intelligence sources in 2013. He was never accused of wrongdoing in that case, but one of those who sought to recruit him went to federal prison on espionage charges and has since been deported.
The number of agents involved in the case is not known, but the acting FBI director Andrew McCabe told Congress this week that he had sufficient funds and manpower to ensure a thorough investigation.
The FBI investigation into Russian meddling is separate from the Congressional investigations that are exploring many of the same questions. The House Intelligence Committee has been hampered by political disagreements and has made slow progress. The Senate Intelligence Committee has run a more robust investigation, including issuing subpoenas for records from Gen. Flynn, and seeking some Trump business records from the U.S. Department of Treasury. Members of the senate committee have made repeated trips to the Central Intelligence Agency to examine top secret documents in a secure setting.
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