The Washington Examiner reported that Rep. Mark Meadows stated that the Justice Department is examining irregularities in the intelligence community as part of its review of the origins of the Russia investigation.
In regards to newly released documents on changes in U.S. procedures for sharing raw intelligence, Rep. Meadows claimed there was “unbelievably unusual activity” in the final months of the Obama administration.
“I can tell you that [U.S. Attorney] John Durham and Attorney General [William] Barr are going to get to the bottom of it,” the North Carolina Republican said Monday evening on Fox News. “They are including in part of their surveillance — really looking at the intelligence community to make sure that justice is brought.”
Before Mark Meadows was brought on to speak along with colleague Rep. Jim Jordan on Sean Hannity’s show, attorney Jay Sekulow discussed the latest findings by his conservative watchdog group, the American Center for Law and Justice.
The records obtained by the ACLJ showed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under James Clapper pushing to increase access to raw signal intelligence before Donald Trump took office.
The New York Times was first to reported the expanded access to intercepted communications in January 2017. Although Hannity and Sekulow played up the newly released records, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, as suspiciously timed and “rushed,” the Times noted the discussions for such changes to remove bureaucratic barriers stretched back years dating back to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
But still, Jordan said that he suspects there was evidence of nefarious intent, tying the changes to an interview Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer did in January 2017 in which he warned then-incoming President Donald Trump that intelligence officials “have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”
“So this is one of those six ways,” Jordan said, adding that the other “ways” include British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier the CIA’s use of informants to make contact with members of the Trump 2016 campaign.
AG Barr tasked Durham, a U.S. attorney from Connecticut, with leading the inquiry focused on the origins of the counterintelligence investigation into Trump’s campaign, which the FBI began in the summer of 2016. The DOJ review of the early stages of the Russia investigation is not a criminal inquiry, but should Durham find criminal activity he can take prosecutorial action.
