"Counterintelligence investigations can take years, but if the Russian government had influence over the Trump campaign, the F.B.I. wanted to know quickly."

"One option was the most direct: interview the campaign officials about their Russian contacts. That was discussed but not acted on, two former officials said, because interviewing witnesses or subpoenaing documents might thrust the investigation into public view, exactly what F.B.I. officials were trying to avoid during the heat of the presidential race. 'You do not take actions that will unnecessarily impact an election,' Sally Q. Yates, the former deputy attorney general, said in an interview. She would not discuss details, but added, 'Folks were very careful to make sure that actions that were being taken in connection with that investigation did not become public.'"

From "Code Name Crossfire Hurricane: The Secret Origins of the Trump Investigation" (NYT). There's much more to this article, which I'm still trying to digest. My confidence in the NYT is undermined by this correction: "An earlier version of this article misstated that news organizations did not report on the findings of the retired British spy Christopher Steele about links between Trump campaign officials and Russia. While most news organizations whose reporters met with Mr. Steele did not publish such reports before the 2016 election, Mother Jones magazine did." You got an easily checkable, important fact plainly wrong. How can we trust your reporting?

ADDED: At WaPo, Erik Wemple has "New York Times acknowledges it buried the lead in pre-election Russia-Trump story":

In a massive article Wednesday on the FBI’s 2016 snooping into the possible nexus between Russians and the Trump presidential campaign, reporters Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman and Nicholas Fandos include these two paragraphs:

In late October, in response to questions from The Times, law enforcement officials acknowledged the investigation but urged restraint. They said they had scrutinized some of Mr. Trump’s advisers but had found no proof of any involvement with Russian hacking. The resulting article, on Oct. 31, reflected that caution and said that agents had uncovered no “conclusive or direct link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government.”

The key fact of the article — that the F.B.I. had opened a broad investigation into possible links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign — was published in the 10th paragraph.

That’s one heck of a concession: We buried the lead! In their book “Russian Roulette,” authors Michael Isikoff and David Corn report that editors at the New York Times “cast the absence of a conclusion as the article’s central theme rather than the fact of the investigation itself,” contrary to the wishes of the reporters....

AND: "10 Key Takeaways From The New York Times’ Error-Ridden Defense Of FBI Spying On Trump Campaign" by Mollie Hemingway (The Federalist).
ALSO: From the Hemingway article:

[T]he admissions in this New York Times story are coming out now, years after selective leaks to compliant reporters, just before an inspector general report detailing some of these actions is slated to be released this month. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported that people mentioned in the report are beginning to get previews of what it alleges. It’s reasonable to assume that much of the new information in the New York Times report relates to information that will be coming out in the inspector general report.

By working with friendly reporters, these leaking FBI officials can ensure the first story about their unprecedented spying on political opponents will downplay that spying and even attempt to justify it. Of note is the story’s claim that very few people even knew about the spying on the Trump campaign in 2016, which means the leakers for this story come from a relatively small pool of people.

"John Kerry-Iran deal report sparks chatter about potential Logan Act violation."

Headline at The Washington Examiner.

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, tweeted in response to the Boston Globe report: "OMG! Logan Act violations!! Send in the G Men..."

Meanwhile, Tom Fitton, who heads the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, said "Kerry making quiet play to save Iran deal with foreign leaders: report. I'm waiting for the Left to scream treason and for Sally Yates to invoke the Logan Act and demand a criminal investigation."

He was referring to former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who was concerned that former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn had violated the Logan Act during the presidential transition period after he discussed policy issues with a Russian envoy....

Ridiculous WaPo headline: "Tiffany Trump may be schooled by her dad’s nemesis, Sally Yates — a new lecturer at Georgetown Law."

"Law school just got a bit more awkward for first daughter Tiffany Trump: Georgetown Law just announced that its newest guest lecturer is Sally Yates, the former deputy attorney general her dad very publicly fired after she refused to defend his controversial travel ban."

1. As the top-rated comment over there says:

I really doubt that Sally Yates will be teaching Tiffany Trump.... First year courses tend to be taught by tenured professors, not lecturers. Lecturers come in and teach one course -- usually very specific to their area of expertise. These are upper level courses. Law students choose their upper level courses, and they know who teaches those courses when they make their selections.

So if Tiffany Trump were to end up in Yates's course as an upper level, it would be because she wanted to be in it. Also, skipping over the whole blind grading thing, Yates is a professional, she's not going to treat a student differently because of who her father is.

2. The verb "to school" seems to be used in the slang sense of "To defeat or put down decisively, especially in a humiliating manner." Here's an Urban Dictionary definition:

Being taught the proper way to preform an action, via extreme ownage and embarrasment. This requires the schooler, who is always of such a high level of skill that the schoolee has no chance of saving his reputation, to utterly dominate and show no remorse. If remorse is shown, it is done in a cool and laid-back way, as in to say "Your not even worth the effort of my pinkie finger", which ironically is just as brutal as an all-out ownage.

"Ownage" is "The act or state of perpetrating fierce and unholy domination against another, typically in a videogame setting, resulting in shame and embarassment for the victim and his/her family until the end of time."

Ted Cruz versus Sally Yates.

"Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel."

Tweeted Trump this morning.

The acting attorney general refused to defend Trump's immigration order... and Trump fired her.

I did not have time to blog about her refusal — I would have said it's up to Trump to fire her — before Trump fired her.

Taking action in an escalating crisis for his 10-day-old administration, Mr. Trump declared that Sally Q. Yates had “betrayed” the administration, the White House said in a statement. The president appointed Dana J. Boente, United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, to serve as acting attorney general until Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama is confirmed....

The extraordinary legal standoff capped a tumultuous day in which... Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, went so far as to warn State Department officials that they should leave their jobs if they did not agree with Mr. Trump’s agenda, after State Department officials circulated a so-called dissent memo on the order.

“These career bureaucrats have a problem with it?” Mr. Spicer said. “They should either get with the program or they can go.”

ADDED: "went so far"?