Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday during a Senate hearing that he has tasked Justice Department officials with helping him review whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation had a proper predicate for investigating the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016.
“Yes I do have people in the Department helping me review the activities over the summer of 2016,” he told Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), a senior member and formerly the chairman of the Justice Committee.
Barr also said he expects there would be “some kind of reporting” at the end of his review.
Barr also committed to Grassley that he would look into text messages sent by former FBI agent Peter Strzok to former FBI lawyer Lisa Page suggesting they wanted to develop sources within the Trump administration to surveil it.
He also said the DOJ has “multiple criminal leak investigations underway” to investigat unauthorized media contacts between DOJ and FBI officials during the Russia investigation.
Grassley noted the irony of the Trump campaign being investigated for “collusion” with Russia, even though the Democrats funded opposition research in the form of a dossier written by an ex-British spy that reportedly drew from Russian sources.
“The Mueller report spent millions investigating and found no collusion between Trump campaign and Russia. But the Democrats paid for the document created by a foreign national with reported foreign government sources. Not Trump — the Democrats. That’s the definition of collusion,” Grassley said.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.