Trump broke months of FBI work to thwart electoral interference



[ad_1]





Chris Wray

The president's comments have put FBI director Christopher Wray in a position where he may have to publicly chastise the president and risk being fired, or resign in protest. | Tom Williams / CQ roll call

elections

Trump's willingness to accept foreign aid has essentially prompted spies overseas to interfere in the 2020 presidential campaigns, canceling months of work, veterans said. of law enforcement.

By DARREN SAMUELSOHN and NATASHA BERTRAND

Nearly two years ago, FBI Director Chris Wray created an office solely to put an end to Russia's attempts at interference that contaminated the 2016 campaign.

On Wednesday night, President Donald Trump slashed the entire operation in a matter of seconds.

History continues below

In an interview with ABC News, the president first proclaimed that he would have no problem accepting that his opponents were powerless, then said that Wray was "wrong" to imply that the FBI needed to know these offers.

According to interviews with nearly a dozen veterans of the police force, comments have been lost for months, essentially inviting foreign spies to interfere in the 2020 presidential campaigns and demoralizing agents trying to stop them. And he supported Wray in a corner, they added, putting him in a position in which he might be forced to publicly chastise the president and risk being fired, or resign in protest.

America's enemies will see Trump's comments and will likely "get out of the hedgerow like never before to try to influence the president," said FBI veteran Frank Figliuzzi, who served as the deputy director of counter-intelligence office until 2012. "more difficult to defend because they will try harder than ever to mask their attempts."

Trump broke all sorts of traditional protocols during his presidency in law enforcement and the intelligence community. At the beginning of his government, his calls to open investigations of his political opponents were largely panoramic by veterans of the Department of Justice who considered the Oval Office's applications as being displaced. But more recently, Trump found an ally in William Barr, the new attorney general who urged the president to request a closer examination of the origins of the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 elections.

With Trump's latest comments airing Wednesday night, the president has resurrected an issue that the special Robert Mueller council has spent nearly two years investigating: is it a collusion to accept damaging information about an opponent from agents foreigners seeking to interfere in an American election?

"This is not an interference," Trump anchored George Stephanopoulos, Bill Clinton's former director of communications at the White House. "They have information, I think I'll take it."

Trump described these offers as "opposition studies" and said he would only call the FBI "if I thought there was something that was wrong." He was not going.

Some allege that Trump's remarks about Mueller's deliberations about whether his team could have sued anyone over the Trump campaign had they obtained the offensive information promised on Hillary Clinton by a Kremlin broker during a very careful meeting of Trump Tower. Mueller's report stated that it was unclear whether the potential information had financial value, which means that this information might not be considered an illegal campaign contribution by a foreign entity. The report also raised the question of whether there was a right to freedom of expression to receive the information.

"This turns the First Amendment into a suicide pact that allows our own government to be harmed," said Rick Hasen, a professor at the University of California at Irvine Law School, who called the findings of the special advocate "green light for foreign intervention in the country". The election of 2020, and this has been confirmed by what Trump told ABC. "

Current officials and former Trump officials downplayed the president's remarks, saying Trump was Trump. While the comments make the Democrats crazy and consume the media, they matter little to government employees if they do not come with direct orders, they argued.

"I think people understand this well until he tries to make it operational," said a former Trump White House official.

DOJ and FBI spokesmen declined to comment on the president's remarks.

Just three months after he took office at the FBI in August 2017, Wray told Congress that he had set up a task force on "foreign influence" to thwart efforts by the FBI. future electoral interference.

The team brings together counterintelligence, cyberspace and counterterrorism officials – nearly 40 in all, according to a New York Times story – and coordinates with the 56 field offices of the FBI. It also collaborates with the Department of Homeland Security, state and local governments, as well as with major social media companies used by Russian agents to spread misinformation and organize false rallies to incite voters to anger.

The magnitude of the effort must match the magnitude of the problem, Wray m said during a briefing at the White House last August. "Make no mistake – the scope of this threat of foreign influence is vast and deep," he said.

Wray also took his warnings to Capitol Hill last month, informing lawmakers that campaigns must be on the lookout for suspicious outreach efforts.

"I think that if an official or member of a campaign is contacted by a nation-state or by anyone acting on behalf of a nation-state for the purpose of influencing or disrupting it. Interfering in our election, the FBI would then want to know what it is. , Says Wray.

The FBI's work over the last few years to combat interference in foreign elections has been consistently praised by lawmakers of all political stripes as well as by many Trump administration officials.

At a Senate hearing on Mueller's final report, Barr described the task force as "a very dynamic program," adding, "I am very impressed by what they are preparing." to scream at a conference on cyber security in New York in the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections.

But law enforcement experts said Trump has now made this job more difficult.

Frank Montoya, Jr., a former director of an FBI counterintelligence office from 2012 to 2014, said Trump's attitude about foreign influence presented "real dangers" to US national security.

"First, our opponents will see an invitation to meddle in the next elections on his behalf," he said. "But the worst is the open door that Trump allowed all kinds of influences to continue against American interests."

David Kris, former Assistant Attorney General for National Security of the Obama era, argued that Trump's latest comments mark for the second time mainly the public demand for Russian aid in the presidential election. During the 2016 campaign, memorable Trump proclaimed that if Russia "listened", she would have to pass after Clinton's "missing" emails – a comment that he later said was made to joke.

"US law enforcement, intelligence and security officials will do all they can to protect the integrity of our democratic processes," said Kris, the firm's founder. Culper Partners, "while being publicly contradicted and undermined by their boss."

Other law enforcement veterans have said that the president's remarks would hurt the FBI and other departments that deal with election security.

"I can not tell you how deeply troubling it is in my professional experience," said a former national security official.

"It must be demoralizing to a certain extent and confusing and, let's face it, unprecedented, to have a commander-in-chief who has such a fundamental lack of understanding of the work done by the Department of Justice and the community of justice. intelligence in this area, "added Greg Brower, former senior FBI-Congress liaison, who served under Wray during his first few months as a director.

"In short, to say that the FBI director is wrong on this or any other issue is in itself staggering," Brower added. "It's more difficult for the leaders, the president appointees, who know the president is wrong, who have to question his basic lack of understanding of what these agencies are doing."

Jim Baker, FBI General Counsel under the direction of FBI Director James Comey, told POLITICO that these remarks could put Wray in a position in which he might have to resign to protest if he fails to convince president to change his tone.

Wray must join Barr "to discuss with [Trump]and if they do not get a sense of comfort, they will have tough decisions to make, "said Baker. "I do not think they should run immediately for the outings, but they can not ignore this one. This could encourage criminal activity and undermine federal law. "

In the meantime, the office staff is being told that everything should be as before, said David Laufman, a former senior national security official with the DOJ, who retired in 2018.

"The FBI and the intelligence community have certainly taken note of the words of the President of the United States who said things that, at first sight, are quite antithetical to the common mission of protecting our national security," he said. said Laufman, who had key role of overseeing the early stages of the FBI's investigation of Russia prior to Mueller's appointment.

"The spontaneous remarks made during an interview are not equivalent to the decrees," he continued, "it seems to me very important that the FBI and intelligence community leaders reinforce with their staff that The agency that nothing has changed. in the agencies' commitment to counter foreign influence operations ".

Marc Caputo contributed to this report.

[ad_2]

Source link