The FBI believes Rudy Giuliani may pose a national security threat to the United States.

[kpete]

THREAD. What does it mean that the FBI reportedly has a counterintelligence investigation on Giuliani?

1. First and foremost, it means that the FBI believes he may pose a national security threat to the United States.

2. CI investigations aren’t predicated on a suspicion that someone has broken the law. Rather, they typically begin because some has had contact with people linked to foreign intelligence and/or is furthering the interests of a foreign power in the U.S.

3. Sometimes people may be targeted unwittingly. For this reason, and bc CI investigations have broader threshold to open (and are secret), they have to be closed after 6 months if no actual threat exists or it can be neutralized in that time

4. Based on reports that the FBI was questioning people about Giuliano’s counterintelligence related issues as far back as Feb/Mar, an ongoing investigation would mean that this is a “Full” rather than “Preliminary” Investigation (former can be open indefinitely)

5. Given that Giuliani is an USPER, the bar to have a Full Investigation on him would be higher than for nonUSPERs. Also, in my experience, people who are being “unwittingly” targeted are neutralized pretty quickly (usually with a warning/heads up that they are targets)

6. (I should also note that the bar would be especially high since Giuliani is POTUS’ lawyer and, well...honestly wth would the FBI go through this movie all over again if there not some serious red flags???)

7. So basically, the FBI thinks something bad — and likely not “unwitting” — is up: That Giuliani is a conduit for pushing the agendas of foreign intelligence and/or foreign interests. Which we really don’t want happening, especially in the Oval Office

8. A couple of things: First, a CI investigation is not mutually exclusive with a criminal investigation. They can happen on different tracks. Given that SDNY has public corruption unit involved, there appears to be a separate criminal investigation on G as well

9. Second, there can be criminal violations on the CI side: Those are espionage (not likely here) or FARA violations (more likely, given what G’s associates were up to). But CI investigations don’t have to — and often don’t — result in criminal prosecutions

10. And bc CI cases don’t often cross over into criminal prosecutions, they would stay within FBI, and not bleed into SDNY unless and until that happened. (It’s not clear to me how much Main Justice would be involved, and how much power Barr would have over it)


From this Xlnt thread:

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On CNN, @AshaRangappa_ says the counterintelligence probe means they think maybe Giuliani is a threat to our national security.

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