Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper berated Attorney General William Barr for saying there had been “spying” on President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The former top American spy said “the term ‘spying’ has all kinds of negative connotations.”
“I thought it was both stunning and scary,” Clapper on CNN. “I was amazed at that and rather disappointed that the attorney general would say such a thing.”
Barr told the Senate Appropriations Committee Wednesday that he was going to be “reviewing both the genesis and the conduct of intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign during 2016.
“I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” he added, starting a media frenzy over the use of the word “spying.” Barr made the remarks during questions about the genesis of the Trump-Russia investigation, an inquiry which Trump has repeatedly referred to in the media as a “witch hunt.”
Clapper, who served under former President Barack Obama and has been a trenchant critic of Trump, said it was not appropriate for Barr to use the phrase without direct evidence that there was any mishandling of warrant applications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He said Barr should have instead asked the Justice Department’s inspector general for a briefing on the matter.
“It would have been far more appropriate for him to just defer to that investigation rather than postulating with apparently no evidence. He just has a feeling that there was spying against the campaign,” Clapper said.
