Working side-by-side with prosecutors, agents escort witnesses into Mueller’s secure Washington headquarters to be interrogated. “The two FBI agents were like Joe Friday, just the facts,” said another recent Mueller witness, who said an agent picked him up at a hotel a couple of blocks from Mueller’s office and whisked him in through a garage.
FBI agents do some of the witness interviews themselves, without Mueller’s prosecutors even in the room. Other sessions include both the special counsel’s team and the FBI, witnesses and their lawyers told POLITICO. The agents themselves are then ready to testify if someone is charged with lying to the FBI, as former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos and Trump campaign official Rick Gates have already have admitted to.
Having FBI agents on hand obviates the need for any prosecutor to testify about what was said, but in the current probe also serves a second purpose: providing someone who could testify even if Mueller’s whole prosecution team were removed and replaced.
Said one former federal prosecutor, who asked not to be named: “If anything happens to the special counsel, the bureau will still be there.”
Said one former federal prosecutor, who asked not to be named: “If anything happens to the special counsel, the bureau will still be there.”.....
hmmm famous last words?