The FBI Has Sought To Interview Eric Ciaramella
This story comes via Yahoo, and the details are somewhat sketchy. The article stresses supposed internal debates at the FBI and suggests there was support for the idea that Ciaramella's complaint raised important issues: FBI seeks interview with CIA whistleblower . Whatever the nature of any internal debate, the FBI did reach out to Ciaramella but, obviously, since he's represented by Mark Zaid any such interview is unlikely. I would add that it's unlikely that the FBI would seek such an interview without having done significant background investigation on Ciaramella. The article specifically disclaims any knowledge re the scope of the intended interview and investigation. Excerpts below. Some of these statements are subject to more than one interpretation. Without knowing who the "former senior official" is it's difficult to judge. There are several former FBI officials who have adopted a clearly propagandistic stance in the Russia Hoax and related matters:
WASHINGTON — The FBI recently sought to question the CIA whistleblower who filed a complaint over President Trump’s July 25 Ukraine call — a move that came after a vigorous internal debate within the bureau over how to respond to some of the issues raised by the complaint’s allegations and whether they needed to be more thoroughly investigated, according to sources familiar with the matter.
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In late September, the Justice Department confirmed that Brian Benczkowski, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s criminal division, and an appointee of Trump, had reviewed the whistleblower’s detailed complaint the previous month and determined there was no violation of campaign finance laws by the president when he asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to open up an investigation into the gas company that once paid Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, to serve on its board.
As a result, Kerri Kupec, chief of public affairs, said the Justice Department determined that “no further action was warranted.”
But that decision, a Justice Department official said, was limited only to the question of potential campaign finance law violations and not to any other issues raised in the whistleblower complaint. “It was a very narrow issue,” the official said.
Some officials within the FBI, which received its own copy of the whistleblower’s complaint in early September, chafed at a Justice Department move they believed was aimed at shutting down any inquiry at all, especially into potential counterintelligence issues raised by the allegations, according to a former senior U.S intelligence official who has discussed the matter with current FBI counterintelligence agents.
There were “guys who wanted to run with it,” said the former senior official. “People were pissed off.”
Others in the FBI were wary and “didn’t want to touch [the whistleblower complaint] with a 10-foot pole because of the Russia investigation,” said this former senior official.
FBI counterintelligence officials were particularly concerned about the claims — detailed in the whistleblower’s complaint — that the president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and two of his associates may have been manipulated by Russian interests, said the former senior official.
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