Gaming out the counterintelligence part of Mueller's probe

[swag]

https://www.justsecurity.org/63437/the-missing-piece-of-the-mueller-investigation/


by Joshua Geltzer and Ryan Goodman
March 29, 2019

Excerpt:

"If the report delivered by Mueller to Barr didn’t include the counterintelligence piece of Mueller’s investigation (or included only pieces of intelligence directly relevant to the potential criminal conspiracy), where is that body of counterintelligence analysis? How else might it get shared with Congress or the public?

One possibility emerged within 24 hours of Barr’s letter going to Congress. “Senior officials” told news outlets that the FBI anticipates briefing congressional leaders on Mueller’s counterintelligence findings. Oral briefings, rather than written findings, provided in closed session may have been deemed by Mueller more appropriate given genuine classification concerns—especially if aspects of the investigation remain ongoing and transferred to a different part of the Justice Department with Mueller’s office winding down. If so, then it may be up to congressional leaders to determine how much of Mueller’s findings in this area can appropriately be shared with the American people, working with the executive branch on classification questions. Alternatively, after providing full briefings in closed sessions, Mueller or FBI officials could potentially provide less detailed, unclassified versions of such briefings in open session.

There are other possibilities, too. Perhaps Mueller has written something separate from the report called for by the special counsel regulations, and that written product is now in the hands of Justice Department officials. If so, members of Congress will surely call for it to be released at least to Congress. Or perhaps Mueller closed the counterintelligence investigation long ago and simply does not have major findings to report. That, too, should be ferreted out by continuing questions from the Hill.

All that said, we must leave room for the possibility that Mueller’s report does contain his counterintelligence findings, and that Barr’s carefully drafted letter chose to focus only on the criminal side of things."


. . . much more at the link