Politico Reports F.B.I. Director Is Planning Russia Trip Weeks Before Midterm Elections
Weeks before the midterms, FBI Director Kash Patel may travel to Moscow under F.S.B. auspices, raising urgent questions about purpose, oversight and undisclosed plans.
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F.B.I. Director Kash Patel is tentatively planning to travel to Russia this fall, Politico reported, citing a United States official and another person familiar with the arrangements. According to the report, the tentative itinerary calls for stops in Moscow and St. Petersburg on Oct. 14 and 15, with Russia’s Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., expected to serve as host.
Those dates would place the visit 20 and 19 days before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. Politico reported that the F.B.I. and Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment and that the White House referred questions to the F.B.I. Politico said it was unclear what was on the agenda or whether Patel would meet President Vladimir Putin or senior Kremlin officials. The publication cautioned that the plans were subject to change.
The report describes a proposed trip resting on two unnamed sources, not an announced or confirmed government itinerary.
Politico identified Robert Mueller’s 2013 trip as the last publicly known visit to Russia by an F.B.I. director. Mueller was near the end of his 12-year tenure at the time. Four years later, the Justice Department appointed him special counsel to oversee the investigation of Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and related matters.
The F.B.I. is the lead federal counterintelligence agency and investigates cyberthreats linked to foreign states. American agencies have repeatedly attributed election interference and cyberespionage to Russian state actors. The F.B.I. has also attributed continuing attacks on American networks and critical infrastructure to a unit of the F.S.B.
The reported visit would occur amid an ongoing war in Ukraine, extensive American sanctions against Russia and the closing weeks of a federal election campaign. That context does not make official contact inherently suspect, but it would place an unannounced visit by the bureau’s director under unusual scrutiny.
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