Those in the Central Intelligence Agency involved with the investigation into Russian interference during the 2016 election are reportedly uneasy and "rattled" with the Department of Justice's probe into the investigation's beginnings.
NBC News reporter Ken Dilanian told "Morning Joe" on Monday since the CIA analysts do not know if the investigation, headed by U.S. Attorney John Durham, is a criminal investigation, they have gotten lawyers, even though they say they did nothing wrong.
"Although [Durham] says he wants to talk to former CIA Director John Brennen, he hasn’t interviewed [James] Comey, Andrew McCabe, Rod Rosenstein. So it’s really not clear where he’s going with this, but a lot of people are very rattled," Dilanian said. "Those CIA analysts I mentioned had to hire their own lawyers because no one is even sure if this a criminal investigation or not. And if it is a criminal investigation, what is the allegation of wrongdoing? No one I talked to can answer that."
"There’s a lot of unease at the CIA and disquiet about the notion of federal prosecutors going over and rooting in their files," he explained. "Not because they think they did anything wrong, but because these are sources and methods — some of the most highly classified documents and secrets in our government. And they are kept to a small set of people for a reason. It’s a need-to-know situation."
Durham is reporting to Attorney General William Barr in the inquiry into the origins of the Russia investigation.
Recommended
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said the DOJ's inquiry is "akin to Barr conducting an investigation about Neil Armstrong’s walk on the Moon, that it wasn’t on the Moon, instead it was on a back lot in Burbank."