THE TIGHTENING NOOSE:

When appointing Robert Mueller as special counsel of the investigation, former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told Mueller to look for "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government," which falls under the purview of a counterintelligence investigation to scope out threats to national security, The Times reported Tuesday.

But Rosenstein privately told Mueller to conduct it as a criminal investigation, thus building a staff equipped to investigate crimes, not national security threats, former Justice Department and FBI officials told The Times.

Citing journalist Jeffrey Toobin's book that first reported their conversation, Rosenstein told Mueller: "I love Ken Starr. But his investigation was a fishing expedition. Don't do that. This is a criminal investigation. Do your job, and then shut it down."

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