Sen. Rand Paul claimed it is highly unlikely former President Barack Obama was unaware of the FISA Court abuses allegedly committed by members of his administration.
“You are the president of the US, and you’re allowing your intelligence community to spy on your political opponents?” Paul asked Tuesday on Twitter. “I’d be surprised if President Obama didn’t know about the abuses that occurred against @realDonaldTrump! We need to fix FISA now so it never happens again!”
The U.S. intelligence community under Obama has come under scrutiny in recent days, following the Justice Department’s decision to drop charges of lying to federal investigators against Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
Flynn, President Trump’s former head of intelligence, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia.
Newly unsealed documents from the House Intelligence Committee show federal agents, under the direction of former Director James Comey, pressed ahead with an investigation into Flynn’s contacts despite their expressed lack of doubt he had lied to them.
The counterintelligence probe centered on whether the Russians were seeking to influence the 2016 presidential election.
You are the president of the US, and you’re allowing your intelligence community to spy on your political opponents? I’d be surprised if President Obama didn’t know about the abuses that occurred against @realDonaldTrump! We need to fix FISA now so it never happens again!
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) May 12, 2020
A Department of Justice inspector general found last year that top FBI agents committed a litany of abuses or otherwise unethical decisions while seeking warrants from the FISA Court to spy on members of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Attorney General William Barr told Congress last year he believed the counterintelligence investigation launched by the FBI was done so on “the thinnest of suspicions.”
Republicans have expressed outrage in response to the revelations, a scandal which Trump and his defenders have dubbed “Obamagate.”
“They tried to take down the president of the United States, a sitting, duly elected president of the United States before I even won,” Trump said on Fox News last week.
On Tuesday, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus introduced a bill Tuesday seeking to repeal the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
“Under the Obama administration, the FISA system was weaponized against a political opponent in a brazen attempt to undermine the will of the American people. But for President Trump’s historic victory in 2016, these abuses, and all the corruption at the highest levels of our justice and intelligence agencies, might never have been uncovered. What happened to President Trump and members of his campaign team could happen to any American, regardless of their political persuasion,” GOP Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs told the Washington Examiner.
Barr has appointed a special prosecutor, John Durham, to oversee an investigation into whether any crimes were committed as part of the Russia investigation.
GOP Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, one of Trump’s staunchest defenders in Congress, said Tuesday that Durham’s probe should lead him directly to Comey.
“The common denominator through all of that, the common guy, is Jim Comey,” Jordan said. “And I hope, I hope John Durham in his investigation is looking hard at holding Jim Comey accountable for all this stuff that played out over the last three-and-a-half years.”
