Other View: Revelations about Federal Bureau of Investigation informant in Trump campaign raises questions

For nearly a year, Donald Trump's rage about the investigation into his campaign's possible collusion with Russian Federation - or, as he calls it, "the greatest Witch Hunt in American History" - has threatened to provoke him to trigger a constitutional crisis by firing the lawyers leading that investigation or by making it impossible for them to do their jobs.

The Mueller team also offered to give U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson a "more detailed presentation of the investigation" and the relevant records in private, though the special counsel said he believed that lawsuit could be resolved based just on the public record.

Haines, who had previously served as deputy Central Intelligence Agency director under John Brennan, was charged by the White House in the summer of 2016 with overseeing the USA response to the Russian election attack.

Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump's attorneys, told The Associated Press on Friday that the White House hopes to get a readout of the information next week, particularly about the use of a longtime government informant who approached members of Trump's campaign in a possible bid to glean intelligence on Russian efforts to sway the election. And Trump took up the cause as the White House tries to combat the threat posed by Mueller's investigation.

Flood and White House chief of staff John Kelly attended the start of the briefings before leaving. Trying to placate Trump and keep his job, Rosenstein turned the FBI's handling of the Russian Federation investigation over to an inspector general to probe. The Justice Department hasn't said what information will be shared with lawmakers and Kelly about the informant. But in the past 24 hours, fears about the substance of the meeting have taken a back seat to political bickering about the guest list.

Mueller, in the filing, said that he was not opposed to unsealing the two Manafort warrants that have been subject to legal challenges that Manafort has brought seeking to throw out certain evidence, with Mueller acknowledging that numerous details about them were already coming out in open court proceedings.

"It's contingent on every point being worked out - it's kind of like the North Korea negotiations but not as important", Giuliani said.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, an ardent Trump supporter, had originally requested the information on an FBI source in the Russian Federation investigation. The "Gang of Eight" includes the top Republicans and Democrats in each chamber and the top Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees.

The meetings are the result of a subpoena Nunes issued earlier this month demanding classified documents related to the source, a request the Justice Department denied over national security concerns. Nunes, House Speaker Paul Ryan, House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy and Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, met at the White House. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of SC was not in the meetings but, in a radio interview Friday, broke with the president to say a "confidential informant is not a spy", though he cautioned about investigations into campaigns. He did not attend the second meeting, citing a scheduling conflict.

Page also noted that Halper had contacted him in early July 2016, weeks before the FBI says the investigation was officially opened.

Democrats objected after Sanders announced Tuesday that they would not be invited, and a trio of influential Republicans - Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley of Iowa, Sen.

"Nothing we heard today has changed our view that there is no evidence to support any allegation that the Federal Bureau of Investigation or any intelligence agency placed a spy in the Trump campaign or otherwise failed to follow appropriate procedures and protocols", Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., and Schiff said in a statement. After those meetings, none of the Republicans who attended had much of anything to say; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said only that nothing he learned surprised him.