The Atlantic

When Does Contact Between the FBI and the White House Cross the Line?

The administration admits to asking the bureau’s deputy director to help it knock down a damaging story about the Trump campaign’s Russia contacts.
Source: Joshua Roberts / Reuters

The White House’s admission that it asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to publicly dispute stories in the New York Times describing contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials raises serious ethical questions, according to former Justice Department officials.

"It's quite inappropriate for anyone from the White House to have a contact with the FBI about a pending criminal investigation, that has been an established rule of the road, probably since Watergate," said Michael Bromwich, a former Department of Justice inspector general and director of the  Bureau of Ocean Energy Management under

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