Quotes from Asha Rangappa

The FBI is not in the habit of leaving loose ends. That's not what they do.

Foreign intelligence services rely on manipulating vulnerabilities over time - like greed, or fear of exposure of a secret - to puppeteer those under their influence into acting in their interests without saying a word.

Field offices are evaluated in part based on their success in following through on leads and making cases that result in arrests and convictions. No case agent worth their salt would remain quiet if their cases were closed in the face of a continuing threat.

Presidents have, of course, acted inappropriately in the past, and our constitutional system has a framework in place for addressing misconduct by the chief executive. But it's designed to deal with straightforward criminal activity, not national security threats.

Trump has repeatedly insisted that he is innocent of colluding with Russia and had no idea about his campaign staff's Russia contacts. So he should be glad to know that the FBI appears to have been trying to thwart a hostile country's efforts to infiltrate his campaign.

After all, clemency is by nature outside the rule of law. When conferred upon those already convicted of crimes, it unravels the decision of citizen-jurors who found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Espionage Act is very broadly written. It doesn't make distinguish - or it doesn't make distinctions between categories of people that can receive and publish information and under what circumstances.

Counterintelligence is, in effect, chasing ghosts, which is why the tools used to investigate foreign intelligence activity are secret, like human sources or electronic surveillance.

The F.B.I. pursues cases against individuals and organizations, not topics - this allows each case to have the flexibility to go in the direction the evidence leads, regardless of what happens with other, related cases.

I mean, the FBI has to assure people who come and help them that they're going to be able to keep their identities confidential and protect them.

But I have to say, in my 12 years as the dean of admissions at Yale Law School, there was a lot of legal behaviour that I saw that worried me and that clearly was allowing wealthier and privileged students to tilt the balance in their favour.

We are a nation founded on distrust of government power, and questioning that power is essential to promoting transparency and accountability.

When I did counterintelligence investigations, they rarely saw the inside of a courtroom. That wasn't the goal of them.

Having conducted counterintelligence investigations, I can attest that not everything a foreign intelligence service does is necessarily illegal.

Under the dual sovereignty principle, the Fifth Amendment's prohibition on double jeopardy - which prevents the government from trying someone twice for the same crime - doesn't apply if the second trial is by a different 'sovereign' - in this case, the state.

I know firsthand from my experience working counterintelligence investigations for the FBI that kicking a diplomat out of the country is no small thing.

Like any country with sophisticated intelligence services, Russia has long been a careful student of U.S. freedoms, laws and the constraints of its main nemesis in the U.S., the FBI.

Rather than trying to find evidence of a crime, the FBI's counterintelligence goal is to identify, monitor and neutralize foreign intelligence activity in the United States.

In the end, granting mercy comes down to just two people. For the recipient, the pardon is freedom. For the politician, the pardon can mean - not surprisingly - political gain.

But history shows that when courts intervene because a president is trying to shield his own conduct, the deck is stacked against him.

As a former F.B.I. special agent who conducted counterintelligence investigations, I can attest that foreign intelligence services do not operate on the basis of explicit agreements or even actions that, standing alone, constitute criminal activity.

Reflexive control is a 'uniquely Russian' technique of psychological manipulation through disinformation. The idea is to feed your adversary a set of assumptions that will produce a predictable response: That response, in turn, furthers a goal that advances your interests.

Russia has taken advantage of its exalted status among right-wing extremists to expand its influence throughout Europe.

The aim of a foreign intelligence service is to find and convince individuals to help them achieve intelligence objectives.