The inquests into Russia’s role in the 2016 election continue.
Panel subpoenas Flynn; Comey reportedly sought more resources
WASHINGTON — The FBI investigation into whether any of President Donald Trump’s campaign aides coordinated with Russian intelligence last year appeared on uncertain ground Wednesday as the Justice Department scrambled to find an interim replacement for FBI Director James Comey and the White House fended off accusations that he was fired to cripple the expanding probe.
Democratic senators and congressional aides said Comey was sacked without warning days after he had asked Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, for more money and personnel for the counter-intelligence investigation into the Russian meddling, an apparent sign that the 9-month-old inquiry was gaining traction.
Comey briefed some members of Congress after his meeting with Rosenstein, who is overseeing the Russia probe.
One Democratic congressional aide said Comey had asked Rosenstein for a “significant increase in resources.” A Justice Department spokesman confirmed the May 1 meeting but denied that Comey sought additional staff or money.
The conflicting accounts emerged amid reports a federal grand jury in Virginia has issued subpoenas to associates of Michael Flynn for records relating to Flynn’s business dealings with Russia, a development first reported by CNN.
Flynn faced another legal problem Wednesday.
Sen. Richard Burr, RN.C., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Mark Warner, DVa., vice chairman, said the panel had issued a subpoena to Flynn to provide documents “relevant to the committee’s investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 election.”
The committee requested the documents last month but Flynn declined through his lawyer to cooperate, Burr and Warner said in a statement.
The criminal grand jury and the Senate subpoenas add further pressure to the White House, which already is facing three separate but overlapping investigations in the GOP-controlled Congress.
The Senate and House intelligence committees have held hearings into Russia’s role in the election, and the Senate Judiciary subcommittee is focusing on Trump associates’ business ties with Russian officials.
The FBI has interviewed Flynn and at least one other former Trump associate. Carter Page, who Trump identified last summer as a foreign policy consultant to his campaign, said in an email to the Times on Wednesday that FBI agents interviewed him in March.
The FBI opened its Russia investigation last July after learning that Page had business ties to officials in President Vladimir Putin’s government. The Washington Post has reported that the FBI obtained a classified warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor Page’s communications out of concern he was meeting with known Russian intelligence agents.
The three congressional committees conducting Russia inquiries have promised to avoid interfering in the FBI counter-intelligence probe, but in the short term they may pose a bigger political threat to the White House. That’s because at least some of their work is public — and early hearings have revealed a series of explosive details.
In March, for example, Comey first confirmed the existence of the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, a disclosure that reportedly infuriated Trump.
In testimony last week, Comey went further and said the Russia investigation was being supervised by career prosecutors in the National Security Division of the Justice Department, and the Eastern District of Virginia.
Comey wouldn’t answer whether the White House was cooperating with the probe.
The president has repeatedly and angrily denied that his campaign colluded with Russian intelligence agencies, and in his letter firing Comey on Tuesday, he went out of his way to say that Comey had assured him “on three separate occasions that I am not under investigation.”
The White House has refused to say when Comey gave those assurances or under what circumstances.