A day after Attorney General William Barr cleared President Donald Trump of conspiring with Russians to win the 2016 election, Republicans in Congress said they would open a new probe into the investigation Trump derided as an "illegal takedown that failed." Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters Monday he has urged since late 2017 a review of the justification for surveillance warrants against Carter Page, a foreign-policy adviser to the Trump campaign that were based in part on a "dossier" of salacious material collected by former British intelligence worker Christopher Steele, who was hired by Democrats to investigate Trump.
“Whether or not it’s illegal, I don’t yet know,” Graham said. “What makes no sense to me is that all of the abuse by the Department of Justice and the FBI – the unprofessional conduct, the shady behavior – nobody seems to think that’s much important. Well that’s going to change, I hope.”ADVERTISEMENTGraham, a former military lawyer himself, also questioned why the FBI did not warn the Trump campaign about repeated Russian efforts to influence him, as documented by special counsel Robert Mueller. Graham said his question is whether the counterintelligence investigation was opened “as a back-door to spy on the campaign.”
Republicans in the House of Representatives spent months investigating similar questions when they controlled the chamber last year, producing incendiary messages in which FBI agents professed their disdain for Trump, but no direct evidence that the Justice Department's conduct was motivated by political considerations. The department's Inspector General also is conducting a review of the Russia investigation.
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05.06.2025