- A senior intelligence official said that Trump’s goal was to “muddy the waters” about the scope of the FBI probe
at a time when Democrats were ramping up their calls for the Justice
Department to appoint a special counsel, a step announced last week. - Current
and former officials said either Trump lacks an understanding of the
FBI’s role as an independent law enforcement agency or does not care about maintaining such boundaries. - Trump’s
effort to use the DNI and the NSA director to refute Comey’s statement
and to say there is no evidence of collusion echoes former president
Richard Nixon’s “unsuccessful efforts to use the CIA to shut down the
FBI’s investigation of the Watergate break-in on national security
grounds,” said Jeffrey H. Smith, a former general counsel at the CIA.
Smith called Trump’s actions “an appalling abuse of power.”
Snapshots of the New Resistance