US to examine claim Trump campaign was under vigil
WASHINGTON: The US department of justice has ordered an internal examination to determine if there was any “impropriety or political motivation” in FBI’S counterintelligence investigation of President Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016.
An FBI informant was in touch with some members of Trump’s campaign ahead of the 2016 election about their contacts with Russians as part of an operation that has since grown into an investigation of alleged Russian meddling in polls being conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Trump and his allies have called t he i nvestigation a “witch-hunt” and have sought to discredit it as politically motivated.
“I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes - and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!” Trump tweeted on Sunday.
Shortly after the tweet, the department of justice announced it had asked its inspector general, an internal but autonomous investigator, to expand an ongoing review to “include determining whether there was any impropriety or political motivation in how the FBI conducted its counterintelligence investigation of persons suspected of involvement with the Russian agents who interfered in the 2016 presidential election”.
Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who is directly overseeing the Russia probe, said in a separate statement: “If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action.”
The informant has been described as a retired professor who had worked for three Republican administrations. He is reported to have worked for both the FBI and CIA.