Barr visits El Salvador for talks
AG also discusses looking into origins of Russia probe
first foreign visit.
Barr highlighted a U.s.-supported program called Regional Shield that he said had hit gangs hard by prosecuting some 7,000 alleged gang members in the three countries.
In an interview later, Barr told Fox News that the public needs to know what the U.S. government was doing during the early stages of the Russia probe.
“I’ve been trying to get answers to the questions, and I’ve found that a lot of the answers have been inadequate and some of the explanations I’ve gotten don’t hang together,”
Barr told Fox News’ Bill Hemmer in an interview that aired Friday. “In a sense, I have more questions today than when I first started.”
When asked by Hemmer what does not hang together, Barr responded: “Some of the explanations of what occurred.”
“Why does that matter?” Hemmer asked.
“People have to find out what the government was doing during that period,” Barr responded. “If we’re worried about foreign influence, for the very same reason we should be worried about whether government officials abuse their power and put their thumb on the scale. … I’m not saying that happened, but it’s something we have to look at.”
In the Fox News interview, Barr discussed the dossier authored by former British spy Christopher Steele that contained uncorroborated allegations of ties between Trump and his associates and Russia that was cited in the application for a warrant to monitor Carter Page.
Steele’s research was funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Barr said taking opposition research that had “a number of clear mistakes” and using it to conduct counterintelligence against an American political campaign “is a strange, would be a strange development.”
Barr on Tuesday appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate the origin of the Russia probe. Barr told Fox News that he appointed Durham because “no one has really looked across the whole waterfront.”