As Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and other Democrats in the House of Representatives are warming up their cauldron in a sad attempt to keep their witch-hunt into alleged Russian collusion by the Trump campaign alive, the Senate is looking to open up an investigation of its own. Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has announced that his committee will be doing a “deep dive” into possible abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) at the start of the Russian collusion investigation.
During a press conference on Capitol Hill last week, Graham announced that his committee will probe how the phony, unsubstantiated Steele Dossier came to be used to obtain FISA warrants on Carter Page in the beginning of the investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“The FISA warrant issued against Carter Page, based on a dossier prepared by Christopher Steele is at a minimum disturbing. Whether or not it is illegal, I don’t yet know. So, I’m going to get answers to this,” Graham said.
Graham called out the media for their one-sided curiosity on the entire issue. “If no one else cares, it seems to me Republicans do, and that’s sad. Because if the shoe were on the other foot, it would be front page news all over the world. The double standard here has been striking and, quite frankly, disappointing.”
Graham plans to call in everyone who signed off on the Page FISA warrants. This would include former FBI Director James Comey, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe and former Attorney General Sally Page.
In 2016, the Obama Justice Department and the FBI obtained FISA warrants to surveil Trump advisor Carter Page. Graham’s probe will focus on how much the discredited Steele Dossier had to do with obtaining the warrants.
“Was it a ruse to get into the Trump campaign?” Graham asked. “I don’t know, but I’m going to try to find out.”
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Graham will also be looking for answers about how much the Democrats paid Fusion GPS, the research firm that commissioned the Steele Dossier, and if any of the document’s information had been verified prior to obtaining the FISA warrants connected to them.
Graham also called on Attorney General Bill Barr to appoint a new special counsel to investigate “the other side of the story,” which would include impropriety in obtaining the FISA warrants, the counterintelligence investigation and the Clinton e-mail scandal.
Reiterating that while the Trump side of the entire Russian collusion story has now been thoroughly investigated by Robert Mueller, Graham concluded that the Clinton side of the story has not been so thoroughly looked at.
“I’d like to find somebody, like a Mr. Mueller, that can look into what happened with the FISA warrants, the counterintelligence investigation. Am I right to be concerned? It seems pretty bad on its face — but there are some people that are never going to accept the Mueller Report, but by any reasonable standard, Mueller thoroughly investigated the Trump campaign. You cannot say that about the other side of the story,” Graham said.
Even before Hillary Clinton was interviewed by the Department of Justice in the “investigation” of her use of a private e-mail server, word came down from Lorretta Lynch that Clinton would not be indicted on the issue.
Graham called for Barr to appoint “somebody outside the current system” to do the same type of thorough investigation that Mueller did, but from the other side of the issue. This new special counsel would, among other things, investigate whether the FISA system was used as a “back door” to spy on the Trump campaign. Graham has been calling for such an investigation since late 2017.
Graham later told Fox News, “What I want is a prosecutor to look at the Clinton e-mail investigation to find out if there was criminal wrong doing in the way it was handled.”
The South Carolina senator isn’t the only Republican calling for more transparency from the Deep State. On Thursday, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced an amendment to a resolution passed in the House of Representatives calling for the release of the full Mueller Report. Paul’s amendment calls for the release of “all information and communications involving James Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, Susan Rice, Barack Obama, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Loretta Lynch, Bruch Ohr or anyone else in the Obama Administration concerning the Steele Dossier.”
Paul’s amendment also called for former CIA chief John Brennan to testify under oath about his activities during the 2016 campaign. Unlike other past CIA directors who generally stay out of partisan politics, Brennan has shown himself to be a hyper-partisan, often taking to cable news to complain about the Trump administration.
Photo: AP Images
