Two prosecutors, including an expert in computer crimes, have departed special counsel Robert Mueller‘s team investigating links between Russia and associates of President Donald Trump, a spokesman for the special counsel confirmed to CNBC Friday.
Ryan Dickey and Brian Richardson appear to have left the team this summer, according to a report by CNN, which first broke the news of the departures. Mueller’s team now has 15 attorneys.
The exits did not have to do with any allegations of wrongdoing or political bias, special counsel spokesman Peter Carr said.
In particular, Trump and his allies have gone after Peter Strzok, a former top investigator on the probe, who was removed from the team after Mueller was made aware of anti-Trump texts that Strzok exchanged with a Justice Department lawyer during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The recent departures from the probe, which entered its second year under Mueller’s direction in May, show no evidence of the sort of impropriety alleged in the Strzok case.