Attorney General William Barr said he wouldn't necessarily describe the questions about actions taken during President Donald Trump's campaign as smelling a "rat," but the answers he is getting about what had taken place are "not sufficient."
"I don't want to speculate about the facts because I don't know the facts at this point," Barr told Fox News' Bill Hemmer in an exclusive interview airing Friday after he was asked his opinion on how former CIA Director John Brennan and ex-DIrector of National Intelligence Clapper handled the Russia investigation.
He also said the Christopher Steele dossier and its role in a FISA warrant obtained for Trump aide Carter Page will also need to be examined.
"It's an unusual situation to have oppositional research like that," said Barr. "On its face, it had a number of mistakes. To use that to conduct counterintelligence against an American political campaign would be a strange development and it's something we're going to have to look at."
Meanwhile, Republicans have said for months that Brennan, Clapper and former FBI Director James Comey have had it in for Trump, said Hemmer, but Barr wouldn't speculate on the motives in play.
Barr said his office also wants to look into a meeting at Trump Tower in New York City in January 2017 before Trump's inauguration between Trump, Comey, and other intelligence chiefs and the leaking of information after that meeting.
"There were some very strange developments during that period," said Barr. "That's one of the things we want to look into such as the handling of the meeting on Jan. 6 between the intelligence chiefs and the president and the leaking of information subsequent to that meeting."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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