一个泄露的私人电话中，前总统巴拉克·奥巴马概述了为乔·拜登竞选的计划，在司法部试图撤销对迈克尔·弗林的指控后，他再次批评了唐纳德·图普总统。
周五，奥巴马在一个有大约3000名政府校友参加的会议上表达了他对“法治正面临危险”的信念，强调了努力在11月选举他的前副总统的重要性。
奥巴马的发言人证实新闻周刊雅虎新闻获得了录音的准确性。这位发言人说，电话会议的焦点是讨论选举“拜登和民主党在今年秋天的投票中上下浮动”
“我认为过去24小时的新闻有些被淡化了——关于司法部撤销对迈克尔·弗林的指控，”特朗普的前国家安全顾问在电话中说，他在2017年承认向联邦调查局撒谎。
特朗普政府一直在努力诋毁俄罗斯的调查及其基础。俄罗斯的调查导致了弗林案。特朗普本人曾多次称此次调查为“政治迫害”，尤其是在特别顾问的最终报告没有提供与俄罗斯官员有犯罪阴谋的证据之后。
就在奥巴马电话会议的同一天，特朗普将拜登拖入了争论，指责这位前副总统“非常投入”，指的是俄罗斯的调查。
拜登竞选团队没有立即回复置评请求。
2019年10月29日，美国前总统奥巴马在伊利诺伊州芝加哥市伊利诺伊理工学院举行的奥巴马基金会峰会上向来宾发表讲话。该峰会是奥巴马基金会主办的年度活动。
奥巴马对直接进入2020年竞选犹豫不决。这些最新的评论肯定会给已经动荡的一周蒙上阴影，因为对俄罗斯干涉2016年选举的调查已经结束，该调查是由特别顾问罗伯特·穆勒的办公室和两个国会委员会进行的。
调查已经对六名特朗普的同伙提出起诉，由于弗林案的最新爆发，这很可能成为2020年竞选的一个主要接触点。
本周公布的一系列新文件进一步加剧了调查的负面影响。
在收到参议院司法委员会现任和前任主席、共和党参议员林赛·格雷厄姆和查克·格拉斯利的请求后，司法部在2017年末公布了一份“范围备忘录”的修订版，概述了穆勒的职权范围。
这份备忘录由时任负责美国联邦调查局(FBI)俄罗斯调查的副总检察长罗德·罗森斯坦(Rod Rosenstein)撰写，解释说穆勒的影响范围包括前特朗普竞选主席保罗·马纳福特(Paul Manafort)与俄罗斯、乌克兰和银行高管之间的潜在交易。
马纳福特后来被判处7.5年监禁，此前他因税务欺诈、银行欺诈、洗钱和篡改证人而被分别起诉。
在新发布的备忘录中，穆勒的广泛授权还包括对两位竞选伙伴乔治·帕帕佐普洛斯和卡特·佩吉的调查，以寻求潜在的俄罗斯合作。
帕帕多普洛斯因向联邦调查局撒谎而认罪，被判处两周监禁。根据去年发布的一份最终报告，穆勒的调查“并未证实佩奇与俄罗斯政府在干涉2016年总统选举的努力中进行了协调”。
但对导致美国联邦调查局(FBI)监视佩奇的过程的持续审查，促使批评者质疑该局的坦率，尤其是在高度敏感的调查中，如俄罗斯事件及其前身。去年12月，美国司法部监察长发布的一份报告发现，美国联邦调查局(FBI)对监控页面的多项申请中存在“严重的绩效失误”。
新发布的备忘录还显示，穆勒获得了调查弗林的广泛自由，包括作为土耳其的一名未注册特工、向美国联邦调查局(FBI)作出虚假陈述、未报告与外国的接触以及与俄罗斯官员交谈等潜在犯罪。
这一最终授权激怒了批评者，他们认为罗森斯坦传达了调查潜在违反洛根法案的权力，而洛根法案此前从未被定罪，一些学者认为该法案违宪。
弗林的案件已经成为穆勒团队起诉中争议最大的案件之一。特朗普一再表示他认为起诉是假的，并提出了赦免的可能性。
弗林的律师最近试图撤回他的认罪。新的证据显示，弗林的辩护律师认为围绕联邦调查局2017年那场灾难性的采访存在不当行为，这促使了对弗林向联邦调查人员撒谎的指控。
在弗林采访时的内部笔记中，联邦调查局官员想知道他们谈话的目的是什么。
"真相/承认或让他撒谎，这样我们就可以起诉他或让他被解雇？"一张纸条上写着。
司法部随后做出了令人震惊的举动，要求撤销对弗林的起诉，称2017年的采访对联邦调查局的调查并不重要，而这是起诉成功的先决条件。
同样在本周，众议院情报委员会公布了数千页闭门采访的记录，而其俄罗斯调查仍在进行中。采访的大部分内容已经被公开描述，但这些文件提供了一个更清晰的画面，显示了众议院议员是如何进行一项带有政治色彩的调查的。
2018年2月，时任情报委员会高级成员的国会议员亚当·希夫(Adam Schiff)在接受霍普·希克斯采访时与律师顶撞，他说:“律师，听起来你当时的意思是，你没有被指示援引特权。”。“你只是奉命拒绝回答问题。我们不认为这是对特权的有效要求。”
在众议院的调查中，声称享有特权和拒绝回答问题将成为常见的重复。
时任白宫宣传主管的希克斯在采访中透露，特朗普的高级助手曾讨论过麦纳福从竞选中窃取的问题。
接下来的一个月，特朗普2016年的前竞选经理科里·勒万多维斯基(Corey Lewandowski)接受了一次采访，采访中出现了多种咒骂语，其中一种是针对民主党议员的，他们在进行采访时也使用了咒骂语。
AS OBAMA PREPARES TO JOIN CAMPAIGN, TRUMP MOVES TO DISCREDIT RUSSIA PROBE STARTED UNDER HIS WATCH
In a leaked private call, former President Barack Obama outlined plans to campaign for Joe Biden, and he renewed his criticism of President Donald Tump in the wake of the Justice Department's attempt to drop charges against Michael Flynn.
Obama conveyed his belief that the "rule of law is at risk" to a conference of around 3,000 administration alumni on Friday, emphasizing the importance of working to elect his former vice president in November.
A spokesperson for Obama confirmed to Newsweek the accuracy of the recording, which was obtained by Yahoo News. The spokesperson said that the focus of the call was to discuss electing "Biden and Democrats up and down the ballot this fall."
"The news over the last 24 hours I think has been somewhat downplayed—about the Justice Department dropping charges against Michael Flynn," Trump's former national security advisor who pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI, Obama said in the call.
The Trump administration has worked to discredit the Russia investigation, which generated the Flynn case, and its foundations. Trump himself has repeatedly called the probe a "witch hunt," especially after the special counsel's final report did not offer evidence of a criminal conspiracy with Russian officials.
The same day as the Obama conference call, Trump dragged Biden into the fray, accusing the former vice president of being "involved in this very much," referring to the Russia probe.
The Biden campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama speaks to guests at the Obama Foundation Summit on the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology on October 29, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois. The Summit is an annual event hosted by the Obama Foundation.
Obama has wavered on making a direct entrée into the 2020 campaign. These latest comments are certain to enflame an already tumultuous week for the now-terminated investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, which had been conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office and two congressional committees.
The investigation has already yielded prosecutions of six Trump associates and, owing to this latest flare-up from the Flynn case, it is likely to be a major touchpoint for the 2020 campaign.
A collection of new documents released this week further heightened fallout from the probe.
After receiving a request from Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and Chuck Grassley, the current and former chairmen of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Department of Justice unveiled a less-redacted copy of a "scope memo" outlining Mueller's remit in late 2017.
The memo, from Rod Rosenstein, then the deputy attorney general overseeing the FBI's Russia inquiry, explains that Mueller's reach included potential dealings between former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Russia, Ukraine and bank executives.
Manafort was later sentenced to 7.5 years in prison following two separate prosecutions for tax fraud, bank fraud, money laundering and witness tampering.
Mueller's expansive mandate, as outlined in the newly released memo, also included probes of George Papadopolous and Carter Page, two campaign associates, for potential Russian coordination.
Papadopolous was given a two-week jail sentence following a guilty plea for lying to the FBI. Mueller's investigation "did not establish that Page coordinated with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election," according to a final report released last year.
But ongoing scrutiny of the process that led to FBI surveillance of Page has spurred critics to question the bureau's candor, especially in highly sensitive investigations such as the Russia matter and its predecessors. A report released by the Department of Justice inspector general in December found "serious performance failures" in the FBI's multiple applications to surveil Page.
The newly released memo also shows that Mueller was given wide latitude to investigate Flynn, including for potential crimes involving acting as an unregistered agent for Turkey, making false statements to the FBI, failing to report foreign contacts and conversing with Russian officials.
That final mandate has irked critics, who believe that Rosenstein was conveying an authority to probe potential violations of the Logan Act, a law which has never before sustained a conviction and some scholars believe is unconstitutional.
Flynn's case has become among the most contested of the Mueller team's prosecutions. Trump has repeatedly voiced his view that the prosecution was a sham and has floated the prospect of a pardon.
Flynn's attorneys have recently sought to withdraw his guilty plea. And new evidence was obtained showing what Flynn's defenders believe to be improprieties surrounding the FBI's fateful 2017 interview, which spurred the charges against Flynn of lying to federal investigators.
In internal notes from the time of the Flynn interview, FBI officials wondered what the goal of their conversation would be.
"Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?" one note said.
The Department of Justice then made the stunning move of requesting that Flynn's prosecution be withdrawn, saying that the 2017 interview was not material to the FBI's investigation, a prerequisite for a successful prosecution.
Also this week, the House Intelligence Committee published thousands of pages of transcripts from closed-door interviews while its Russia investigation was still active. Most of the contents of the interviews have already been characterized publicly, but the documents provide a clearer picture of how House lawmakers were conducting a politically charged probe.
"Counsel, it sounds like what you're saying then is you have not been instructed to invoke privilege," Congressman Adam Schiff, then the ranking member on the Intelligence Committee, said in February 2018, butting heads with counsel during an interview with Hope Hicks. "You've merely been instructed to refuse to answer questions. We don't recognize that as a valid claim of privilege."
Claims of privilege and refusals to answer questions would become a familiar refrain in the House's probe.
Hicks, then the White House communications director, divulged later in the interview that senior Trump associates had discussed concerns Manafort was stealing from the campaign.
An interview the following month with Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager in 2016, contained multiple expletives, including one that was directed at Democratic lawmakers, who themselves used expletives when conducting the interview.
