FBI Director Mueller tried to remain discreet during today’s hearing at the House Judiciary Committee when it came to the Comey-Gonzales showdown in 2004. Mueller confirmed that he had “serious concerns” about “an NSA program,” as he termed it. Fears within the Justice Department that the program was illegal, he said,
affected the FBI in the sense that we received pieces of information from the NSA. … My concern was to assure that whatever activity we undertook as the result of the information we received was done appropriately and legally. At some point in time, (Comey) expressed concern about the legality of it.
This legal doctrine is known as the “fruit of the poisoned tree.” That is, Mueller’s fear is that if the information he gets from NSA to launch investigations was collected illegally, then any resulting prosecution of potentially dangerous figures will be thrown out of court.
But one thing he wouldn’t corroborate is his alleged threat to resign — a big part of Comey’s testimony.
“I would resist getting into that conversation,” Mueller told Rep. Steve Cohen (D-NC).