What Happens to the FBI's Russia Investigation Now?
About a week ago, FBI Director James Comey went before the Senate Intelligence Committee to testify on two FBI investigations: one of Hillary Clinton and her emails, and another of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and any connections the Trump campaign may have had to the Russians. The former investigation was conducted and closed amid much public scrutiny and controversy. The second, no less controversial investigation is ongoing, but Comey refused to go into it in detail. And this Tuesday, Comey was fired, having never wrapped up the second investigation.
So what happens to that still unfinished Russia investigation? “The short answer is that no one knows,” said Susan Hennessey, the managing editor of the Lawfare blog and a former intelligence community lawyer. (The FBI’s investigation runs parallel to at least two other investigations, one in the Senate and one in the House, looking into similarThe signs, however, are not encouraging. The abrupt and strange way Comey was fired, as well as the lack of a nominee to replace him, “is a very political decision, and the message it sends seems to be to back off the investigation,” said Amy Zegart, the co-director for Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution.
