Top Republican Releases FBI Official's Private Testimony
Collins, the Judiciary Committee's ranking member, did so in the name of transparency, saying in part that the American people "deserve to know what transpired in the highest levels of the FBI at the origin of the probe of President Trump’s campaign."
The Washington Examiner's Jerry Dunleavy reports:
Priestap, the former assistant director of the FBI's counterintelligence division, played a significant role in overseeing both the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server and her handling of classified information, as well as the FBI’s investigation into allegations that President Trump and Trump campaign associates were colluding with the Russian government during the 2016 election.
No charges were filed against Clinton and the special counsel Robert Mueller's final report, according to a summary by Attorney General William Barr, stated “the Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
Due to the nature of Priestap’s work as a high-ranking FBI counterintelligence official, Collins stated that some information from the interview had been redacted. “Out of an abundance of caution, this transcript has a limited number of narrowly tailored redactions, relating only to confidential sources and methods, non-public information about ongoing investigations, and non-material personal information," he said.
Priestap was set to retire at the end of 2018, making him yet another high-ranking FBI official involved in both the Clinton investigation and the Trump-Russia investigation to either be fired or to leave the Bureau. Former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and former FBI special agent Peter Strzok were all fired.
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