President Donald Trump blasted his own attorney general Jeff Sessions Wednesday over his handling of a probe of alleged ‘potentially massive’ surveillance abuse that touched his presidential campaign.
Trump went after Sessions – who he went after mercilessly on Twitter earlier in his tenure – a day after Sessions said his agency’s internal inspector general would probe the allegations.
‘Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse,’ Trump wrote, leaving out a question mark at the end of his inquiry.
‘Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc. Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!’
President Trump blasted his own attorney general Jeff Sessions over a probe of alleged FISA court abuse in the Russia probe
A Republican-drafted House Intelligence Committee memo charges the FBI improperly got a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to allow surveillance of former Trump campaign official Carter Page by relying on the infamous Steele dossier, which was mostly funded by Democrats.
Asked Tuesday about whether alleged FISA abuse would be probed, Sessions replied: ”Yes, it will be investigated.’
‘We believe the Department of Justice must adhere to the high standard in the FISA court. I think that’s just the appropriate thing, the inspector general will take that as one of the matters he’ll deal with,’ Sessions said.
President Trump attacked his own attorney general online Wednesday morning
SOMETHING BETWEEN US: Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, center, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, right, look on as President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with state and local officials to discuss school safety, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018, in Washington
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders revealed no such animosity when asked about the probe Tuesday.
‘I think that’s the role of the Department of Justice, and we’re glad that they’re fulfilling that job,’ she told reporters.
DOJ’s IG, Michael Horowitz, was appointed to his post in 2012 by President Barack Obama – but has had a decades-long career as a Justice Department lawyer and has served under multiple presidents.
He worked at the agency from 1991 to 2002, served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in the 1990s, and was nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2003 as Commissioner on the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
The IG is already probing the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email scandal. That probe is ongoing, although anti-Trump texts between two FBI lovers have already come out.
Trump’s call for having ‘Justice Department lawyers’ handle the inquiry could be a call to have a second special counsel handle the matter.
Having a counter investigation running could muddy the public discussion of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian election meddling and Trump campaign contacts with Russians.