Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he believes Attorney General William Barr is investigating intelligence agencies to help distract from the fact that President Trump’s campaign is seeking help from foreign governments.
“Barr’s sole objective as attorney general when it comes to foreign interference in our election is to inoculate the president, by investigating his critics,” the California Democrat said in a Thursday interview with the Washington Post.
Schiff added Barr was protecting Trump “by investigating the law enforcement agencies who had the temerity to do their jobs and protect the country against an unscrupulous campaign that was accepting foreign help.”
“I think you might want to listen. There’s nothing wrong with listening. If somebody called from a country, Norway, ‘we have information on your opponent.’ Oh, I think I would want to hear it,” Trump said in a Wednesday interview with ABC about whether he would accept opposition research from a foreign government.
“It’s not an interference. They have information, I think I’d take it,” Trump said.
“He’s basically telling the Russian dictator that, if you want to intervene in our election again, as long as you do it to help my campaign, I will never call you out on it,” Schiff said about Trump’s comments.
“If the president and the people around him are still willing to countenance foreign interference in our election, that’s a deep counterintelligence risk,” Schiff added. “It indicates that the marching orders from the president on down are designed to bolster his campaign, and not protect the country from foreign interference.”
The Department of Justice released a letter Monday to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., describing the investigation headed by Barr to “illuminate open questions regarding the activities of U.S. and foreign intelligence services as well as non-governmental organizations and individuals.”
The letter states that Barr believes there are “open questions relating to the origins of this counter-intelligence investigation and the U.S. and foreign intelligence activities that took place prior to and during that investigation.”
The attorney general’s investigation into intelligence agencies follows the end of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether President Trump’s 2016 campaign conspired with the Russian government. Mueller found no conspiracy but outlined various ways in which Trump potentially obstructed justice during the investigation.
