==Robert Mueller==
In 2009, when [[Robert Mueller]] ran the [[FBI]], the bureau asked Deripaska to spend millions of his own dollars funding an FBI-supervised operation to rescue a retired FBI agent, Robert Levinson, captured in [[Iran]] while working for the [[CIA]] in 2007.
The U.S. government in April 2018 imposed sanctions on Deripaska, one of several prominent Russians targeted to punish Vladimir Putin - using the same sort of allegations that the [[State Department]] used from 2006 to 2009. Yet, between those two episodes, Deripaska seemed good enough for Mueller's FBI to ask him to fund that multimillion-dollar rescue mission. And to seek his help on a sensitive political investigation. And to allow him into the country eight times.
===Andrew McCabe===
Before [[Andrew McCabe]]'s meteoric rise in the FBI’s [[Washington D.C.]] offices, he led the Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force, a joint operation with the New York City Police Department (NYPD). run out of the FBI’s New York Field Office in [[Manhattan]]. McCabe supervised the task force who were aggressively chasing and flipping, and in many cases – paying Russian organized crime figures as snitches to make high-profile cases.
Like [[Robert Hanssen]], McCabe always seemed to have his fingers in all things Russia that the FBI was doing. Hanssen worked the same angle for over $1 million in cash and diamonds, working as an inside counterintelligence agent, reporting back to Russia the FBI's as a double-agent.
While in New York, McCabe worked in tandem with [[Bruce Ohr]] who often coordinated with McCabe’s Russian organized crime task force. Ohr worked Organized Crime too for DOJ.
McCabe maintained an alliance with Deripaska. McCabe met with Deripaska in [[Europe]] without proper clearance from FBI, while Deripaska was a possible target on a FBI organized crime probe.
During McCabe’s liaisons with Deripaska, [[Peter Strzok]] was running the FBI’s Post-Adjudication Risk Management plan, or PARM, a program initiated to catch problematic and criminal associations of FBI agents. Strzok and PARM should have snagged McCabe’s Russian associations, especially Deripaska. Many agents were fired for far less, under the stringent internal program.
And by 2015 even officials at the Central Intelligence Agency became concerned about McCabe’s contact with Russian officials, according the federal law enforcement sources. The CIA’s Counter Espionage Division may have opened a formal a case on McCabe, after intelligence about his contacts with Russians sparked a review of his foreign associates, sources said.
{{Quotebox|"There may have been an official case. I know for a fact he was looked at informally, where we would see what he was doing with foreign contacts. A formal case would be classified and I couldn’t get into the details if it hinged on Russian organized crime,"}} one CIA source confirmed. The agency source said McCabe was on the CIA’s radar after 2009 and 2010 when agency officials got word McCabe may have he met with Deripaska in Europe.
FBI organized crime investigators had apparently been looking at Oleg Deripaska at the time of the meeting, FBI sources said and McCabe, as FBI brass, did not seek the proper approval from FBI Dir. [[Robert Mueller]] or [[DOJ]] brass to sit down with the Deripaska.
{{Quotebox|"He really had no business meeting with Deripaska and sort of forced his way into the trip at the last minute. He kept in touch with Deripaska and was very touchy about anyone else (from the FBI) speaking to him. Andy took an active role (with Deripaska).”}}
Two FBI Agents were sanctioned by Mueller’s office to interview Deripaska in Europe. McCabe was FBI upper echelon and was not approved to speak to Deripaska, sources said. In fact, it appears FBI policy would have required McCabe to get a waiver signed by DOJ officials to be permitted to meet with Deripaska, especially since Deripaska was a potential player in an open FBI investigation.
{{Quotebox|"You #$?%π€¥ need really high level approvals for that. These people are potential targets in a FBI investigation.”}}
Many FBI sources too questioned why Robert Mueller would sign off on McCabe’s trip to Europe to meet with Deripaska. But McCabe acknowledged to FBI agents that Deripaska was a were old friends.<ref>https://truepundit.com/comey-mueller-ignored-mccabes-ties-to-russian-crime-figures-his-reported-tampering-in-russian-fbi-cases-files/ </ref>
==Christopher Steele and Bruce Ohr==