Are US Spies All Scared Off By Trump? By Josh Marshall

Are US Spies All Scared Off By Trump?

Editor’s Blog – Talking Points Memo / by Josh Marshall / 3h

In response to my post below, a number of readers wrote in to say that it’s hard to believe that Chinese intelligence didn’t get wind of Cindy Yang’s influence operation out of Mar-a-Lago. We can’t know that for sure. But it’s a very obvious and very important question.TPM Reader ST asked whether it was possible another counterintelligence investigation might already have been launched into this issue. If so, have the congressional Gang of Eight been briefed on it.

These are all distant hypotheticals. But they raise a more immediate and real question. Given everything that’s happened over the last two years, with the various FBI officials who’ve been fired, seniors agents who’ve been pilloried or kicked out of the Bureau, how big an appetite do we think there is for launching counter-intelligence investigations that even get close to the President or key supporters. Just in the nature of things, I find it hard to believe this hasn’t had a big effect.

One point is important to note here. The investigation that began in 2016 into Russia and the Trump campaign was rare or unprecedented. But there’s nothing that out of the ordinary about investigations or probes into foreign parties trying to gain access or information about high level members of the US government or the President. In those cases, it is defensive of the President or the high level government officials rather than investigating them. But it’s not clear that this is a distinction that would matter to President Trump. Indeed, it may not be much of a distinction given the President’s openness to and ease in justifying doing business – and here I mean personal business rather than the country’s business – with foreign governments.

Go down the list: Sessions, Rosenstein, Comey, McCabe and a slew of other FBI executives who were in place at the start of the Russia probe are now gone. It’s true that, as far as we can tell, the Special Counsel probe has not been disrupted. But killing or stymieing a publicly known investigation with massive public attention is vastly harder than simply making the elective choice to not start new investigations.

Again, given all we’ve seen, how could this possibly not have an effect and likely a big one.

SHAREVISIT WEBSITE