Testifying under oath before lawmakers late last year, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch denied getting any instruction by President Barack Obama or his administration to investigate the Trump campaign for political purposes.
Appearing before a joint task force of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, Lynch was asked if she believed the Justice Department or FBI ever got political in their handling of the inquiry, which began as a counterintelligence investigation in the summer of 2016.
“I know that they did not,” Lynch said on Dec. 19.
Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who is now the House Judiciary chairman, asked: “Did President Obama, or anyone in his administration, ever make a demand or request that the FBI or DOJ infiltrate or surveil the Trump campaign for political purposes?”
Lynch gave a one-word answer: “Never.” Asked how she would react if she had received such a request, Lynch said, “I would have declined it and told them how inappropriate it was.”
Lynch also denied that she ever made any law enforcement decisions at the Justice Department that were for political reasons, including in regards to the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
The transcript of the interview was released Monday evening by House Judiciary ranking member Doug Collins, R-Ga., giving a look into the private testimony given for a GOP-led inquiry into potential bias in the Justice Department and the FBI at a time when there is a debate about whether there was “spying” on Trump’s campaign with the use of wiretapping and informants.
Although Republicans have lost control of the House, there is now a multi-pronged effort to root out any misconduct by the Obama administration in the heat of the 2016 election.
The FBI launched its original counterintelligence investigation, called Crossfire Hurricane, in July 2016. It was prompted by Australian diplomat Alexander Downer informing the FBI that Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos told him Russia had damaging information on Hillary Clinton, Trump’s Democratic rival in the 2016 election. Attorney General William Barr has tasked U.S. Attorney John Durham to review the origins of the counterintelligence investigation, which was later wrapped into special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Mueller’s report shows his team could not find sufficient evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Republican investigators have charged that there was a politically motivated reason to investigate President Trump and his team. House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said last week that Mueller “knew the day that he walked in the door there was no evidence of the Trump campaign colluding with Russians.”
Mueller was appointed as special counsel in May 2017, eight days after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.
GOP lawmakers have also raised the alarm about the FBI’s use of an unverified dossier to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants to wiretap onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Several top-level Obama officials, including Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan, have come under the crosshairs for potential misconduct for their treatment of the dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele.
