President Donald Trump, emboldened by his hand-picked Attorney General’s false claim of “spying” by the U.S. Intelligence community on the Trump campaign, told reporters Thursday he agrees with William Barr.
“I think what he said was absolutely true,” President Trump said in the Oval Office. “There was absolutely spying into my campaign. I’ll go a step further — in my opinion it was illegal spying, unprecedented spying, and something that should never be allowed to happen in our country again.”
Trump described Attorney General’s remarks before the U.S. Senate, characterizing a judge-warranted counterintelligence investigation as “spying,” as “very accurate.”
It is a clear attempt to discredit the FBI and the Mueller report, and criminalize the agents, investigators, and officials involved. It also ties back to Trump’s entirely unfounded lie that President Barack Obama “wiretapped” him. An Inspector General’s review found zero evidence to support that libelous attack, which Trump tweeted about two years ago.
Attorney General Barr did walk back his remarks slightly, after being informed there is a perceptible difference between “spying,” which evokes an illegal context, and a counterintelligence investigation, which is the actual job of the FBI and other intelligence agencies.
Barr also said it remains to be seen if the investigation was warranted.