FBI employees who worked on Crossfire Hurricane called the investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn a “nightmare” and expressed relief when the bureau considered closing the probe in November 2016, according to messages released on Thursday.
Flynn’s lawyers released the documents in a court filing in his federal criminal case on charges that he lied to the FBI.
The messages show that some FBI employees questioned investigative steps that the bureau took in the investigation. The FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation against him and three other Trump campaign advisers in August 2016 over their possible ties to Russia.
The messages were culled from the FBI’s internal “Lync” messaging platform. The employees are not identified in the document dump, though they appear to have had detailed knowledge of the probe.
One exchange suggests that an FBI official ordered the investigation of Flynn, whose code name was “Crossfire Razor,” to be closed on Nov. 8, 2016.
“He said shut down Razor,” the analyst wrote, adding minutes later: “So glad they’re closing Razor.”
The time stamp for the message is 5:42 p.m., which would have been hours before Donald Trump pulled an upset victory over Hillary Clinton in the presidential election…
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