The Justice Department has released a largely unredacted copy of former acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s 2017 memo laying out the scope of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, offering a previously unseen glimpse into how the Russia probe was framed.
“The Scope of Investigation and Definition of Authority” was released Wednesday at the request of Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the current and former Judiciary Committee chairmen.
The memo, dated as being sent on Aug. 2, 2017, and written to Mueller when Rosenstein was serving as deputy attorney general, specified five people whom he was permitted to investigate: Carter Page, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, George Papadopolous and one other whose name was redacted.
In the case of Page, Mueller was to probe allegations that he committed a crime by colluding with Russian government officials with respect to their efforts to interfere in the 2016 election.
Regarding Manafort, Mueller was tasked with looking into whether he colluded with Russia in their 2016 election interference, as well as regarding his work in Ukraine and whether he committed a crime by taking loans from a bank CEO who was pursuing a job with the Trump administration at the time.
The same allegations regarding Russian collusion were to be answered by Mueller regarding Papadopolous, although Mueller was also asked to look into whether Papadopolous was an unregistered agent of the Israeli government.
The memo then asks Mueller to look into four issues relating to former national security adviser Flynn, who was fired less than a month into the Trump administration for lying to Vice President Mike Pence and the FBI about his Russian contacts.
The first question was whether he committed crimes by talking to Russian government officials during the Trump transition period, whether he lied to the FBI about those talks, if he failed to report foreign income and contacts on government background check forms and if he properly registered as a foreign agent of the Turkish government.
A fifth name is included in the list, although it was redacted by the Justice Department.
Recently released FBI documents on Flynn showed the then-counterintelligence director openly questioned if the bureau’s “goal” was to “get him to lie,” prompting outrage over whether Flynn’s case was improperly handled.
The documents were provided by the Justice Department as part of a re-examination of Flynn’s case.
The four-page document included one page of handwritten notes, believed to be written by former FBI counterintelligence director Bill Priestap. The notes were taken in January 2017, following a meeting with former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, according to Fox News.
Priestap’s handwritten remarks were taken down on the heels of a critical interview with the newly installed national security adviser regarding Flynn’s contacts weeks earlier with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
“What’s our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?” Priestap wrote. “If we get him to admit to breaking the Logan Act, give facts to DOJ & have them decide. Or, if he initially lies, then we present him [redacted] & he admits it, document for DOJ, & let them decide how to address it.”
Flynn pleaded guilty in late 2017 to lying to the FBI about conversations he had with Kislyak. However, his lawyers now say they believe this document supports their case to reverse his plea, citing investigative misconduct.