President Trump urged Republican lawmakers on Friday to investigate bombshell disclosures that the FBI relied on a suspected Russian spy to justify secret surveillance of his campaign in 2016 in search of evidence of collusion with Moscow.
At a campaign rally in Atlanta, Georgia, the president called out to Republican Sen. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, and Rep. Doug Collins, who were in the audience, to get to work on the scandal.
“David, if you guys can start working on that when you get back,” the president called out with a smile. “Doug, please, if you don’t mind. Kelly, start working on that with David, please, okay? I think Monday morning would be okay.”
William Barnett, an FBI agent assigned to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, said he believed there was a “get Trump” attitude among some people in the special counsel’s office and that prosecutors, rather than FBI investigators, pushed most of the decisions.
A summary of his comments was disclosed late Thursday in the case of former national security adviser Michael Flynn by the Justice Department as part of its request to have the case dismissed.
Other disclosures in text messages show that FBI and CIA personnel purchased personal liability insurance because they were worried about the implications of the agencies’ actions in the FBI’s probe of the Trump campaign. And the so-called Steele dossier, on which the FBI based its suspicions of Russian collusion, included allegations from a suspected Russian spy, a fact never disclosed to the secret court that granted the surveillance warrants.
The president said the revelations show that the allegations of Russian collusion against him turned out to be “the exact opposite.” He said the Obama administration was in bed with Moscow.
“They were the ones that were dealing with Russia. It was a disinformation campaign,” he said.
