Special Counsel Prosecutor Disputes NY Times Report

(Fox News) – A top prosecutor from Robert Mueller’s special counsel’s office disputed a New York Times report that said then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein limited Mueller’s investigation by keeping him from exploring President Trump‘s financial ties to Russia.

According to the Times, former law enforcement officials said Rosenstein secretly told Mueller not to take his Russia probe down that path without telling the FBI. After the report came out, prosecutor Andrew Weissmann disputed it.

“NYT story today is wrong re alleged secret DOJ order prohibiting a counterintelligence investigation by Mueller, ‘without telling the bureau,'” Weissmann tweeted Sunday night. “Dozens of FBI agents/analysts were embedded in Special Counsel’s Office and we were never told to keep anything from them.”

Weissmann added that the Times was also incorrect in reporting that Rosenstein concluded they lacked a good reason to investigate Trump’s personal ties to Russia.

Weissmann cited the Justice Department’s appointment order that named Mueller as special counsel, which said Mueller was authorized to investigate, among other things, “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.”

The Russia probe has drawn recent attention after the Senate Intelligence Committee released the fifth and final volume of its report on Russian election interference earlier this month.

The report noted that Russia “took advantage” of members of the Trump transition team and their “relative inexperience in government, opposition to Obama administration policies, and Trump’s desire to deepen ties with Russia to pursue unofficial channels through which Russia could conduct diplomacy.”