Lindsey Graham's probe of FBI and Mueller is running out of time

The Senate has fewer than 50 days left on its calendar before the 2020 elections, not enough time for the Senate Judiciary Committee to interview all the key players in its probe into 2016 FBI misconduct, writes US political correspondent Griffin Connolly

Monday 15 June 2020 20:44 BST
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Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham is investigating the origins of the FBI's 2016 counterintelligence investigation into possible ties between Donald Trump and Russia. (Photo courtesy Reuters)
Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham is investigating the origins of the FBI's 2016 counterintelligence investigation into possible ties between Donald Trump and Russia. (Photo courtesy Reuters) (REUTERS)

The clock is ticking on Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham’s investigation into alleged misconduct by top US intelligence officials during their probes in 2016 and 2017 into possible ties between Donald Trump and Russia.

Last week, Republicans on the Judiciary panel authorised Mr Graham on a party-line vote to subpoena 53 people who the chairman believes have direct knowledge of the investigations and their origins.

But there are fewer than 50 days left on the Senate calendar before the 3 November 2020 elections that will determine whether Mr Graham continues holding the committee gavel or if Democratic ranking member Dianne Feinstein takes control.

Add to that the committee’s obligations to respond to the nation’s continued unrest over civil rights and police brutality and the resurgence in many states of the Covid-19 pandemic, and it’s hard to see how Mr Graham can cleanly conclude his investigation by his target month of October.

At the same time, Attorney General William Barr’s Justice Department is also investigating the origins of the FBI’s 2016 counterintelligence probe — codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane” — on ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, and the decision to name a special counsel, Robert Mueller, to continue that probe.

The ongoing investigation into the investigators began as an internal DOJ review but subsequently became criminal. John Durham, the US attorney tasked with leading that investigation, has not indicted anyone.

But Mr Durham’s list of witnesses almost certainly includes most of the people Mr Graham also wants to interview since both men’s teams are examining virtually the same threads of inquiry.

Taking a backseat to Durham

The problem for Mr Graham is anyone Mr Durham has already talked to — or even plans to talk to — would be smart to resist the Judiciary Committee’s subpoenas for fear they could incidentally incriminate themselves before the panel amid a separate, ongoing criminal investigation.

The Justice Department could also tell Mr Graham to shove it if Mr Durham feels any of the chairman’s subpoenas infringe on his own work.

Both these conditions — the running clock and Mr Durham’s ongoing criminal probe — leave Mr Graham’s hands tied as he tries to pin down critical testimony from the key players behind Crossfire Hurricane before filing a report on his conclusions in October.

Without any such testimony filling in the “why” or “how” of the FBI’s and special counsel’s actions during their inquiries into the Trump-Russia allegations, the report is likely to deploy mostly inferential gymnastics based on a limited set of facts about the FBI’s haphazard use of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants, and highlight Mr Mueller’s failure to indict anyone on Mr Trump’s team for conspiracy with the Russians as an ex post facto denouncement of the initial justification for the probe itself.

That is to say: Mr Graham is unlikely to discover anything this summer that will substantially alter what we already know — or what the parties think they know — about this whole saga.

Nevertheless, Mr Graham is intent on ploughing ahead.

“This committee is not going to sit on the sidelines and simply move on. I can assure you we’re not going to be deterred,” he said during last week’s subpoena authorisation meeting.

“If we have to do it by ourselves, we will. The American people deserve answers to these questions and we intend to get them,” Mr Graham said.

Good politics?

What Mr Graham’s insistence on pursuing the probe shows is that Republicans believe keeping the Mueller investigation and the 2016 FBI investigations in the political limelight actually benefits them politically.

Mr Trump has sought to make “Obamagate” — his theory that his predecessor, Barack Obama, sought to undermine his campaign and nascent presidency with investigations he has called “witch hunts” — a key part of his 2020 reelection messaging strategy against the supposed “deep state” of career government officials with malign political intentions.

Since Mr Mueller released his report last year concluding there was not enough evidence to bring a conspiracy prosecution against the president’s son Donald Trump Jr, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and others, Republicans have felt emboldened to denounce Mr Mueller’s 22-month operation as a waste of time and taxpayer money.

(Never mind that asset forfeitures from successful corruption prosecutions against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, ex-deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates, and former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen helped the government more than break even [although that recovered money was not directly channeled to pay Mr Mueller’s team’s bills].)

It’s been nearly a year since most pollsters stopped asking Americans their thoughts on Mr Mueller, but after the special counsel released his report in April 2019, public opinion in favour of launching an impeachment inquiry into Mr Trump plummeted (before being revived again by the Ukraine affair).

With the battle-tested “No Collusion” arrow in their quiver, Republicans are not scared of what Mr Mueller might say under Democratic questioning, which Mr Graham has promised to allow in his committee room.

"I promise you that if you want to call Mr Mueller, or his designee, that's fine with me, at the appropriate time," Mr Graham said last week.

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