Barr reveals he is reviewing 'conduct' of FBI's original Russia probe

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/barr-reveals-he-is-reviewing-conduct-of-
fbis-original-russia-probe

Attorney General William Barr revealed Tuesday that he is reviewing the
“conduct” of the FBI’s original Russia investigation during the summer of
2016, following calls from Republicans to investigate the origins of the
probe.

Barr testified before a congressional panel in what was his first Capitol
Hill appearance since revealing the central findings of Special Counsel
Robert Mueller’s investigation. Barr was grilled by Democrats on the
handling of that summary, which stated the special counsel found no
evidence of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Russia
during the 2016 election -- but he was also questioned about the initial
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants approved to surveil
members of the Trump campaign.

Barr explained that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz
has a pending investigation into the FISA warrants and said the probe will
be complete by May or June. He then confirmed he's personally reviewing
the investigation itself.

“More generally, I am reviewing the conduct of the investigation and
trying to get my arms around the aspects of the counterintelligence
investigation that was conducted in the summer of 2016,” Barr testified.

The comments come after House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin
Nunes, R-Calif., said over the weekend he was preparing to send eight
criminal referrals to the Justice Department this week regarding alleged
misconduct by DOJ and FBI officials during the Trump-Russia investigation.
It is unclear whom Nunes will refer for investigation, and what the
process at the Justice Department might be.

When asked Tuesday about Nunes’ referrals, Barr said he hasn’t seen them
yet, but, “Obviously, if there is a predicate for investigation, it will
be conducted.”

Barr’s review could dovetail with the work U.S. Attorney John Huber has
been doing. In 2017, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed Huber
to review not only alleged surveillance abuses by the Justice Department
and the FBI but also the handling of the probe into the Clinton Foundation
and other matters.

But Republicans have expressed concern about Huber’s investigation, saying
he’s made little progress and has not interviewed individuals they
believed he should. Republicans, including President Trump, have only
stepped up calls to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation
with the completion of the Mueller investigation.

The day following Barr’s release of his summary of the Mueller report,
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said his panel
would investigate alleged FISA abuses at the start of the Russia
investigation and called on Barr to appoint a new special counsel to
investigate “the other side of the story.” Graham has been calling for a
second special counsel since 2017 to investigate “whether or not a
counterintelligence investigation was opened as a back door to spy on the
Trump campaign.”

Days later, Fox News learned that the president was enthusiastic about the
idea of appointing a second special counsel. The president has repeatedly
tweeted support for a review of some kind.

The investigation was formally opened by Peter Strzok, a former senior
counterintelligence agent, during the summer of 2016. Former FBI counsel
Lisa Page, with whom Strzok was romantically involved, revealed during a
closed-door congressional interview that the FBI “knew so little” about
whether allegations against the Trump campaign were “true or not true,” at
the time that they opened the probe, noting that they had just “a paucity
of evidence because we are just starting down the path” of vetting the
allegations. Page later said that it was “entirely common” that the FBI
would begin a counterintelligence investigation with just a “small amount
of evidence.”

The FBI, at the time, was led by former Director James Comey and former
Deputy Director Andrew McCabe -- both fired by the Trump administration.

Meanwhile, Barr vowed Tuesday to release the Mueller report to the public
"within a week."

“Right now the special counsel is working with us. This process is going
along very well and my original timetable of being able to release this by
mid-April stands," Barr testified. "From my standpoint, within a week, I
will be in a position to release the report to the public and then I will
engage with both chairmen of Judiciary Committees on any requests that
they have."

Barr said that he identified four areas of the report that he believed
should be redacted, including grand jury material, information the
intelligence community believes would reveal intelligence sources and
methods, any material that could interfere with ongoing prosecutions, and
information that could implicate the privacy or reputational interests of
“peripheral players.”

Barr said that the Justice Department, with the help of the special
counsel's office, plans to “color code the decisions from the report and
provide explanatory notes describing the basis for each redaction.”

Barr maintained that he is working "diligently to make as much information
as possible available to Congress."

Fox News' Gregg Re contributed to this report.



--
No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.

Donald J. Trump, 304 electoral votes to 227, defeated compulsive liar in
denial Hillary Rodham Clinton on December 19th, 2016. The clown car
parade of the democrat party ran out of gas and got run over by a Trump
truck.

Congratulations President Trump. Thank you for cleaning up the disaster
of the Obama presidency.

The Obama-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)
approved Uranium One in fall 2010. With a little luck, we'll see
compulsive liar Hillary Clinton in jail before she dies.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp.

Obama increased total debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion in the eight
years he was in office, and sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood queer
liberal democrat donors.