Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that the Trump the Trump campaign officials had had multiple contacts with Russian intelligence agents during the two thousand sixteen presidential campaign. The next day, Deputy FBI, the deputy FBI director, told White House Chief of Stance Rants Previous that the report was not true, and FBI Director James call Me allegedly
repeated that to previous. Later, the White House pushed back hard to discredit the time story, and, according to The Washington Post, had put the CIA director and other senior intelligence officials, as well as senior members of Congress, in touch with the media to undercut the story, and after the FBI had refused to go on the record. Was all of this legal and proper? Was it okay for the FBI to tell the White House about the status of its investigation into this matter? Here to talk with
us about that? As Matt Miller, a partner at Villa Novo who was the director of the Office of Public Affairs at the Department of Justice during the Obama administration, Matt, what are the rules in the federal government about FBI contact act with the White House on pending investigations? So there are a couple of things that are relevant here. One is that the FBI, under longstanding practice that applies not just to the White House but anyone that they're investigating.
They don't you know, they don't inform the subjects of their investigations. Uh, what is true in a news story, what's not true? So if you're a major bank that's being investigated by the FBI and the New York Times writes the story and you call them up, they won't tell you, oh no, that that thing you read the
story is not true, because they don't do that. And of course, in this case, the White House, Um, the White House may not be a subject of investigate this investigation, but we know that the president's campaign associates are uh, and the president's campaign is and potentially the President himself and their number of people in that White House who worked on the campaign. So there's a there's a problem
there with the FBI communicating with them. And then it's it's compounded by the fact that they're long standing Department of Justice guidelines that say that that say, any contact between the Justice Department, of which the FBI is a component, and the White House are supposed to be funneled through very prescribed channels, typically through the White House Council's office lawyer and a lawyer, UM, to make sure there is
no communication about an investigation, because then there's the potential for the White House to tamper with that investigation, to try to influence it, to try to pressure the FBI. Matt, do we know from the FBI that the FBI actually did tell the White House things about the investigation or is that coming from the White House. It's all coming from the White House. Um. And and that is a problem here because, UM, I don't think this is a partisans thing to say the White House. This white House
has a credibility problem. There are a number of, you know, documented instances in which the White House has said things that turn out later to not be true. So it's been reported that that, um, the direct deputy It's been reported from the White House to reporters that the deputy director said these reports were bs. Those were the quote, UM they used. We don't know if that's exactly what
they said. It could be that there was some minor thing that they would quibble with in that New York Times story, but that doesn't mean, uh, the entire story was wrong. Or the import of the story was wrong, and the FBI so far has neither commented on it on the record, nor if you look at the reporters that are coming this closely, they're not even really getting
a lot of background guidance from the bureau. Well, Matt, if this is a Department of Justice guidelines, you have a new Attorney General in place, you have a new president and a new White House Chief of Staff and all the rest of it in the administration, couldn't they have just changed the rules if they wanted to. Well, they could, but as far as we know, they haven't. Um. They have made no indication that they withdrew um those guidelines. Um.
But you know that is a big underlying problem. You know, there is a longstanding practice that d o J is independent, that the president can't tell or the President doesn't tell the Attorney General who to prosecute, and by the same token doesn't tell the Attorney general. Here's what you shouldn't invest the gate. But it's not the Constitution anywhere, it's not a law, it's not even in a regulation. It's just long standing norm. Because that's what prevents this from
becoming a banana republic. Um. But if the if the Attorney General were to, you know, withdraw those guidelines and institute nuance. He certainly could, but it would be a major weakening of the rule of law, and I think something that that people would really look at with great concern about what it means for the future of independent law enforcement. Matt, you have several committees investigating this, and
the Senate Intelligence Committee is one of those. The top Democrat on that, Mark Warner, warned the panel's chairman over reports that the Republican work with the White House to try to squash the negative stories about Russian interference in last year's elections, calling it a threat to the integrity of the congressional probe. Is there any way that Congress can investigate this with the number of Republicans that are to be involved in different ways? Or should there be
an independent investigator? You know, I think there ought to be an independent investigator. I've long thought that the Intelligence Committee, even if it could conduct a fair investigation, isn't a great channel because, um what, a lot of what they do is classified. At the end of the day, if they write a report, they're dependent upon the White House and the Administration to tell them what they can declassify. I think it needs to be uh an independent commission.
And and that's even that that's even more true now when you see reports that the person the chairman of that committee who is supposedly UH investigating the this this um UH this potential potential collusion between the campaign and the Russian government is taking direction from the White House about how to manage stories. It gives you, you know, gives me, and I think it gives a lot of other people great doubts that that investigation really is independent.
And the only solution to that is taken out of the hands of that chairman UM and put it into an independent mission. Well, Matt, back to the UH the question of how this should have been handled. You know,
you mentioned that this White House has credibility problem. Certainly the press doesn't seem to believe them right now on a lot of things, and so when they're faced with a situation like this, where there let's assume for the moment the Times report was incorrect, is it a little unfair to say, well, you just have to you know, you can't get the folks who actually know about this involved to deny it. Wouldn't that be you know, unfair and frustrating for the White House. Well, so here here
is the the issue with that. UM, yes, that's true, but that's that's that's largely the case when you're um, uh say you, when you are the subject of an investigation by independent law enforcement. You may think a report is not true, but no one else in the universe can then go to the FBI and direct them to go out and correct it. The problem is, you know what what is known in military circles here is command influence. You know, the FB, the director of the FBI ultimately
can be fired by the president. UH. The head of the CIA and one of the other people who apparently got on the phone with reporters can be fired with the president. The White House mediates disputes between UH, the FBI and the CIA and other intelligence agencies. So there's a reason they're supposed to be independent from the White House, UH is so that there cannot be this sort of pressure and influence that leads them to doing something UM that they should not do. Well, but we're about at
a time. I want to thank UH Matt Miller from Viennovo, partner of Vienova from being for being here on Bloomberg Law. That's it for this edition of Bloomberg Law. Will be back tomorrow thanks to our technical director Chris Tracomy and our producer David Sutterman. Coming up on Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg Markets with Carol Masser and Corey Johnson. Carol, what have you got coming up? What do we talk about? We're gonna talk a little bit about a company that makes
video games with some cool properties. Also gotta talk about Warren Buffett with his investor letter over the weekend. Get a lot to say. He always has a lot to say, doesn't it. And we all listen, don't we. That's right, that's coming up straight ahead on Bloomberg Radio. This is Bloomberg