As far as Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., is concerned, it’s a foregone conclusion that the FBI spied on President Donald Trump’s campaign — he wants to know how extensive the effort was.
Appearing on Fox Business Network’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Nunes was asked by host Maria Bartiromo if he believed the FBI employed sources across the world to entrap people from the Trump campaign, the goal being to claim that Donald Trump was colluding with the Russians.
The former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said it wasn’t a question of if, but how many.
“I think I actually said — I think I said it first on your show, as I recall. I said, I’m not worried about whether or not they were spying on the Trump campaign. That is fact,” Nunes replied. “What I want to know is, how many spies, with an S, were involved in this? I mean, it’s — and this is why we have to get to the bottom of this, why all this information needs to come out.”
He referenced the relationship former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos had with Maltese academic Joseph Mifsud, who told Papadopoulos the Russians had thousands of Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Mifsud has long been suspected of deep ties to Russian intelligence, according to the Washington Examiner.
“How is it then the FBI — or supposedly the FBI or other assets know to continually ask Papadopoulos about e-mails, about Clinton e-mails in 2016?” Nunes asked.
Bartiromo finished the thought, saying that nobody knew about the emails “except Mifsud and Papadopoulos.”
“So, how did the FBI know if Mifsud wasn’t an asset of the FBI?” she asked, with Nunes in agreement.
Now the ranking member on the House Intel Committee, Nunes sent a letter to U.S. intelligence agencies and the State Department Friday seeking relevant documents related to Mifsud.
https://twitter.com/PoliticalShort/status/1125061927061815296
As Bartiromo established, there was no warrant in place as all of this was going on, asking if this was “illicit spying.”
“I never knew that you could use counterintelligence capabilities — these are the — these are the capabilities that we have in our government to go after and target terrorists,” Nunes said. “I never knew that you could actually go out and use those capabilities to spy on Americans.”
“And, look, we don’t know all of this yet for sure,” he continued. “But I think we have strong suspicions that that is exactly what was happening.”
Nunes said fired FBI agent Peter Strzok and his mistress, bureau attorney Lisa Page, were exchanging text messages about this.
“The wanted an insurance policy,” Bartiromo chimed in.
“That’s right,” the congressman replied.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, followed Nunes and was asked to respond to his colleague’s remarks.
“Well, I think the fundamental question is, was Joseph Mifsud working for Western intelligence?” Jordan asked. “And if he was, that changes it all.”
He noted that Attorney General William Barr has indicated that he’s going to get to the bottom of this.
“And it is important that we do find out how this all started,” Jordan said.
“I always go back to this: January 3, 2017, then the highest ranking official in the United States Congress, Sen. Chuck Schumer, said this about president-elect Trump. He said, you mess with the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” he continued.
“And the question is, did that really play out?” the GOP lawmaker asked. “Was the intelligence community targeting the Trump campaign, targeting the Trump — then president-elect Trump and the Trump administration? Bill Barr wants to find out. And I think he’s going to do it. And I applaud him for doing so.”
Jordan also reminded viewers that it wasn’t just Mifsud, citing the New York Times story about a flirtatious undercover FBI agent “trying to set George Papadopoulos up.”
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Tom@bizpacreview.com
The longest-tenured writer at BizPac Review, Tom grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills.
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