Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Sunday he wants answers about the role the CIA and the Obama White House played in the Trump-Russia investigation, including answers on what President Barack Obama himself may have known.
The Judiciary Committee chairman spoke with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures about the unanswered questions he has about possible abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Regarding who he thought was the “mastermind” behind President Trump getting caught up in the investigation, Graham said he believed more than just the Justice Department and FBI needed to be scrutinized, saying he was curious about the role U.S. intelligence agencies played as well.
“You know, I really am very curious about the role that CIA played here,” Graham said.
Graham noted the DOJ and FBI made extensive use of the dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele, which he put together in 2016 at the behest of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS. The Clinton campaign hired the firm through Marc Elias of the Perkins Coie law firm and the campaign was briefed about Steele’s findings. The Democratic funding was never revealed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Graham said the dossier was “one problem” but not the only one.
“This whole intelligence operation, what role did the CIA play? Who knew about this in the White House? There’s a question!” Graham said. “Was President Obama briefed on the fact that they were opening up a counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign? I’d like to know that.”
“At the time John Brennan was running CIA,” Bartiromo said. “Are you going to call him to testify?”
“We’ll see,” Graham replied.
Brennan, Obama’s CIA director, is a vociferous Trump critic on Twitter and television. Brennan wrongly suggested earlier this year that members of Trump’s family would be indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller, who did not establish any criminal conspiracy between Trump and Russia. Brennan’s possible role in the Trump-Russia probe is increasingly being scrutinized. According to multiple reports, the CIA had a key informant close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Brennan would hand-deliver information from the source in an envelope directly to Obama in the summer and fall of 2016. This source was allegedly providing information about the Kremlin’s culpability in election interference efforts.
There is also an ongoing debate over whether Brennan or former FBI Director James Comey attempted to include the unverified dossier in the high-profile Intelligence Community Assessment of January 2017 which focused on this Russian interference.
Graham signaled he might want answers to some of those questions.
The interactions Trump associate George Papadopoulos had with the mysterious Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud allegedly led to the FBI opening an inquiry into Trump in July 2016. Mifsud allegedly told Papadopoulos in the spring of 2016 about the Russians having “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. Papadopoulos then allegedly mentioned this to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, who later passed the information along to the FBI, triggering what the FBI dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane.”
It remains unknown what Obama knew about all this as it was happening.
Graham also discussed the “three lanes” of the investigation of the investigators looking at the origins and conduct of the probe into alleged connections between Trump and the Russian government.
Graham said the first lane is the work his Senate Judiciary Committee will do. The second lane is the work being done by Attorney General William Barr and Barr’s right-hand man, U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is looking into possible criminality in the Obama administration. The third lane is the FISA abuse investigation carried out by DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz.
“My job will be to make sure this never happens again,” Graham said. “Do we need to change the FISA warrant application process to protect against this happening in the future? Do we need to have rules about counterintelligence investigations being opened against politicians? Do we need to restructure the Department of Justice? These are things that Congress will be looking at.”
