Thread: FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of Trump, and Senate Intel Volume 5 on that investigation, took time because they were done by the book.

You need to understand why things went down the way they did, and why they’re being revealed this week instead of years ago.

First, counterintelligence investigations are clandestine in nature. The subject should not know he is a subject. That way you can catch him in the act. And if that subject has the power to shut down the investigation, then you have even more reason to keep it under cover.

Counterintelligence investigations take a long time because you can’t just kick doors down. You have to use intelligence gathering tradecraft and tools. And you also can’t interview as many witnesses as you might like to because they might start talking to each other.

The counterintelligence into Trump was opened in May 2017, right when Mueller was being appointed to investigate completely separate activity from the activity being investigated as part of the counterintelligence investigation.

From May 2017 until Mueller submitted his report in March 2019, the counterintelligence investigation was able to hide within the Mueller investigation. No one understood that Mueller’s criminal investigation was entirely separate from the counterintelligence investigation.

While Mueller investigated members of the Trump campaign other than Trump, the FBI was conducting its separate counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump was compromised by Russia. Anything outside of Mueller’s scope had to be done carefully, to avoid detection.

For example, we know Rosenstein did not authorize Mueller to investigate Trump’s finances. The FBI had to have done that as part of its counterintelligence investigation, so they had to secure Trump’s financials without him (or anyone else) knowing about it.

In short, the counterintelligence investigation was long, difficult, and hindered by its clandestine nature. We know it was still going in late July 2019 because Mueller told us when he testified. We do not know when or if it ended, but we know it has reported to Senate Intel.

Let’s work backwards to figure out how long it would take Senate Intel to write up its 1000-page, Volume 5 report on the FBI counterintelligence investigation.

We know Volume 5 was complete by May 5, 2020, because Burr announced it at Ratcliffe’s confirmation hearing that day.

I would guess it would take at least six months to learn enough about and write up a 1000 page report on a complex counterintelligence investigation. That would mean Senate Intel would have gotten started by November 2019.

If I’m right on that, that narrows is down to a window from late-July 2019 until around November 2019 when the FBI’s counterintelligence investigating was sufficiently complete to begin reporting out on it to Senate Intel.

That would mean the counterintelligence investigation took somewhere between 26-30 months to be in position to pass the baton to Senate Intel. That sounds about right to me.

Once Senate Intel got what it needed from the FBI, it needed time to prepare the 1000 page report before the intelligence black-out 90 days before the Election. They are not governed by that black-out, but they would want to observe it to make sure they aren’t criticized.

And, of course, the report had to go through a two month declassification process. Senate Intel wants to be sure not to expose (or be accused of exposing) any classified information in Volume 5, as well as to protect FBI sources and methods.

Rather than simply jumping up and reading the report on the Senate floor, as he is allowed to do, Warner wants to follow the book. Do everything exactly right. And hopefully end up with a bipartisan report that can come from the entire Senate Intel Committee.

So, that’s why this has taken so long. There were no leaks and, it seems, no false steps. The FBI knows it’s about to come under attack for conducting this investigation, and they want to be above any hint of nefarious behavior.

Volume 5 is about to drop.

#ReleaseVolume5