William Barr testifies that there was spying on the Trump campaign, Democrats, Clapper and media pounce
The fact is that there was a FISA warrant to monitor Carter Page and the Trump campaign due to suspicions of Russian collusion. The next fact is that the Mueller report clears the President and his team from any said collusion and now Attorney General William Barr testified on this “spying,” angering many in the media and the Obama administration.
James Clapper photo/donkey hotey
“I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” Barr said in a congressional hearing, deliberately or not, playing into claims that Trump’s campaign was unfairly targeted by the FBI. “I think spying did occur.”
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Wednesday said it was “stunning and scary” that Barr would claim Trump’s 2016 campaign was spied on.
“I thought it was both stunning and scary,” Clapper said in an appearance on CNN on Wednesday. “I was amazed at that and rather disappointed that the attorney general would say such a thing.”
“The term ‘spying’ has all kinds of negative connotations, and I have to believe he chose that term deliberately,” he added.
Clapper then makes an irresponsible and clear play on the public relations: “It would have been far more appropriate for him to just defer to that investigation rather than postulating with apparently no evidence. He just has a feeling that there was spying against the campaign,” he said.
“We’re focusing on this circus about whether or not somebody was spying on the campaign, which is, I think, a gross misstatement,” Clapper added.
No evidence?
There is the Mueller report and the public knowledge of the actions from Obama’s FBI as well as that pesky FISA warrant.
“I think really he means surveillance,” she told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.
Surveillance is NOT spying now?
“When I heard ‘spying,’ my heart skipped a beat,” said Harry Litman, a former deputy assistant attorney general, on CNN.
“That is a loaded term — Bill Barr knows it’s a loaded term and was likely to play into a triumphant talking point from President Trump,” Litman said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a case that Barr could not be trusted to observe the traditions of political independence implied in the job of attorney general.
“Let me just say how very, very dismaying and disappointing that the chief law enforcement officer of our country is going off the rails, yesterday and today,” Pelosi said.
“He is the attorney general of the United States of America, not the attorney general of Donald Trump,” she added.
“AG Barr must retract his statement immediately or produce specific evidence to back it up,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) tweeted. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, accused Barr of “carelessly acting as a mouthpiece for President Trump‘s conspiracy theories.”
The critics and attacks on Barr dominated the cable shows:
“I was among those who wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt when he came in,” said David Gergen, a former adviser to presidents on both sides of the aisle who is now a senior CNN political analyst.
“I just felt he would just want to protect his reputation for integrity and would want to show that he was independent … and he has now repeatedly acted in ways that have called all of that into question.”
