It looks like we FINALLY have someone ready to follow the law and get to the bottom of the corruption that happened in order to spy on the Trump campaign. Attorney General William Barr is calmly going about answering questions and investigating what really happened in the attempted coup of President Trump. The tables have turned…

Attorney General Barr is testifying again today on Capitol Hill. Things got off to a very interesting start with Barr telling Senator Shaheen that spying occurred on the Trump campaign under President Obama:

Senator Shaheen: News just broke, today, that you have a special team looking into why the FBI opened an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections. I wonder if you can share with this committee: who is on that team; why you felt the need to form that kind of a team; and what you intend to be the scope of their investigation?

AG Barr: Yeah, I, uh, as I said in my confirmation hearing, I am going to be reviewing both the genesis and the conduct of intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign during 2016. And, uh, a lot of this has already been investigated, and a substantial portion of this has been investigated and is being investigated, by the office of the inspector general at the department.  But one of the things I want to do is pull together all the information from the investigations that have gone on, including on the Hill and the department, and see if there are any remaining questions to be addressed.

Shaheen:  Can you share with us why you feel the need to do that?

Barr: Well, for the same reason we are worried about foreign influence in elections we want to make sure that, uh, during an election, I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal. It’s a big deal.

The generation I grew up in, which is the Vietnam war period, people were all concerned about spying on anti-war people and so forth by the government; and there were a lot of rules put in place to ensure there was an adequate basis for, before our law enforcement agencies get involved in political surveillance.  I’m not suggesting that those rules were violated, but I think it’s important to look at that; and I’m not just talking about the FBI necessarily, but the intelligence agencies more broadly.

Shaheen: So your not, your not suggesting though that spying occurred?

Barr: I don’t, well, I guess you could, I think there’s that spying did occur. Yes, I think spying did occur.

Shaheen: Wow, let me, uh…

Barr: But the question is: whether it was predicated. Adequately predicated. And I’m not suggested that it wasn’t adequately predicated, but I need to explore that.

I think it’s my obligation, Congress is usually very concerned about intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies staying in their proper lane, and I want to make sure that happened; we have a lot of rules about that.

And, I want to say that I’ve said I’m reviewing this, I am going to, I haven’t set up a team yet but I do have, I have in mind having some colleagues help me pulling this information altogether, and let me know if there are some areas that should be looked at.

And I also want to make clear this is not launching an investigation of the FBI.  Frankly, to the extent that there were issues at the FBI, I do not view it as a problem that’s endemic to the FBI. I think there was probably a failure among a group of leaders there, at the upper echelon; and so I don’t like to hear attacks about the FBI, because I think the FBI is an outstanding organization, and I think that Chris Wray is a great partner for me and I’m very pleased that he’s there as the director.

And if it becomes necessary to look over some former official activities, I expect that I’ll be relying heavily on Chris, and work closely with him in looking at that information. But, that’s what I’m doing, I feel I have an obligation to make sure that government power is not abused; I think that’s one of the principal roles of the attorney general.

Catherine Herridge has great information on what happened this morning during the hearing:

The table has been flipped and turned on the corrupt intel agencies who spied on the Trump campaign.

More on the lack of a defensive briefing by AG Loretta Lynch:

https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1105845684962496516

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