ACTING AS A RUSSIAN AGENT: After President Trump fired FBI Director Jim Comey, the FBI felt it necessary to open a counterintelligence investigation to determine whether Trump was acting as an agent of the Russian government.
New York Times: “In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.”
NEWLY RELEASED TRANSCRIPTS: Transcripts released today reveal that then-FBI general counsel James Baker said the FBI was contemplating whether Trump was “acting at the behest of” Russia.
CNN: “James Baker, then-FBI general counsel, said the FBI officials were contemplating with regard to Russia whether Trump was ‘acting at the behest of and somehow following directions, somehow executing their will.’”
Baker in congressional interview: “If the President of the United States fired Jim Comey at the behest of the Russian government, that would be unlawful and unconstitutional.”
POSSIBLE NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT: Opening this investigation shows how worried counterintelligence investigators were that Trump could be a threat to our national security.
New York Times: “Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security.”
CONCEALING CONVERSATIONS: Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Putin, raising even more questions of what might have been discussed.
Washington Post: “President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.”
NEW SCRUTINY OF THE OTHER TRUMP TOWER IN RUSSIA: A 2014 effort to build a Trump Tower in Russia with an oligarch tied to Putin is drawing new scrutiny from Congress.
NBC News: “Trump’s partner in this earlier project was Aras Agalarov, an oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the same man whose promise of dirt on Hillary Clinton set in motion the infamous June 2016 meeting at the original Trump Tower in New York. Two Congressional aides told NBC News the Agalarov project is now drawing new scrutiny from House and Senate investigators in the wake of the revelation in court documents that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen lied to Congress about his dealings on a separate, competing Russia real estate project.”
Emin Agalarov: “It’s basically an empty piece of land to this day.”