What started the Russia probe? As Pres. Trump and AG Bill Barr question the legitimacy of the investigation, a look back at its origins:
Both President Donald Trump and his attorney general, Bill Barr, on Friday questioned the legitimacy of the FBI's investigation into whether Russia secretly co-opted members of Trump's campaign ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
-- When did the FBI first start conducting surveillance -- or"spying" -- on a member of the Trump campaign, and was it appropriate?-- As the investigation progressed, did the FBI inappropriately use"opposition research" as a basis for more invasive investigative steps?In his interview with Fox News, Barr claimed much of what transpired during the FBI investigation has yet to be made public.
"The last American to have that honor was Barack Obama in July 2009," the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, recently testified to Congress."It was very odd to me that this rather obscure businessperson would be given such an honor." The informant, Cambridge professor Stefan Halper, chatted with Page about foreign policy and politics, and they remained in contact over the next year, as reflected in correspondence later released by Page.
The Democratic National Committee had announced a major breach of its computer systems and fingered Russia as the culprit. And then on July 22, 2016, four days before the DNC was going to officially nominate Hillary Clinton as Trump's rival for the White House, the online organization WikiLeaks posted tens of thousands of internal documents heisted from the DNC's servers.
It was"an extraordinary allegation," suggesting"there was a coordinated effort by the Government of Russia to elect somebody here in the United States," Peter Strzok, one of the FBI’s top counterintelligence agents at the time, recalled to lawmakers last year.Strzok would supervise it, and two FBI attorneys, James Baker and Lisa Page, would assist. Others inside FBI headquarters, including senior leadership, were briefed.
At the time, there was"absolutely no preconceived belief or feeling at all" that Trump himself was implicated, she said. Halper still knew how to get in touch with Carter Page. And in early September 2016, Halper sent an unsolicited email to another Trump campaign member: George Papadopoulos. In fact, according to the New York Times, the FBI sent"Azra Turk" to London “to help oversee the politically sensitive operation.”"[Halper] starts talking about Russia and hacking and if I'm involved, if the campaign is involved," Papadopoulos recalled."And I think I pushed back, and I told him, 'I don't know what the hell you're talking about. ... I don't know anyone in the campaign who's involved.
All of the allegations -- recorded in what is now known as “the dossier” -- were based on what Steele's own sources were telling him. It described Steele as a"reliable" FBI source whose previous"reporting has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings." But, the application said in a footnote, Steele conducted his latest research"likely looking for information that could be used to discredit" Trump.
Specifically,"the evidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election," the report said.
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