The way the FBI investigated allegations of a secret backchannel between the Trump Organization and Russia-based Alfa Bank was peculiar in several regards, according to a former FBI agent.
A number of FBI agents and officials took steps that effectively shielded from scrutiny the source of the allegation: operatives tied to the Clinton campaign, according to information that came out during the trial of Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who fed the allegation to the FBI in 2016 while on the campaign’s payroll.
Field agents probing the veracity of the allegation were kept in the dark by their supervisors about its source and prevented from taking steps to seek out and talk to the sources. They found the allegation unsubstantiated….