On Saturday, Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy stated that the best thing Attorney General Bill Barr can do now that he’s received DoJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on alleged abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court by former FBI officials is to release as much of it as possible to the public.
“I would ask the attorney general to work Sunday — he probably does anyway — after church, let’s read the report and get it released to the American people. They’re entitled to know what happened,” he told Fox Business Network‘s Neil Cavuto.
Kennedy continued to note that FBI and Justice Department officials are “entitled to their own political beliefs, but they can’t act on them” in an official capacity, which appears to have been the case regarding reported efforts by former FBI agent Peter Strzok, former director James Comey, and former deputy director Andrew McCabe, among few others, to undermine President Trump and drive him from the office.
“If somebody in the 2016 campaign did and tried to hurt President Trump or hurt Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, the American people need to know, they need to be dismissed from the Justice Department and FBI, and if necessary, they need to be prosecuted with great vengeance and furious anger,” Kennedy continued.
“We need to get this behind us and restore the credibility of the FBI and the Justice Department,” he added.
“Now, if somebody didn’t do anything wrong, then let’s tell the American people that.”
The Louisiana Republican also noted that he wants the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which he is a member, “to get into this.” But first, he added, the American people should “have a chance to read the report.”
The FBI under James Comey and McCabe first obtained a surveillance warrant during the waning weeks of President Obama’s administration, then renewed applications for surveillance at least three times after Donald Trump defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Earlier reports said that James Comey and others including former Justice Department Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein used the unverified “Russia dossier” paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC as justification for the FISA warrants.
If so, legal experts say, that could mean James Comey and others are in legal jeopardy for purposely defrauding the FISA court in order to obtain their warrants.
Cavuto noted that McCabe’s lawyer has been pressuring the Justice Department to drop the investigation into his client’s actions because he has yet to be charged with any crime.
But as Kennedy noted, others — including Trump campaign and Trump administration officials like George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn — have been charged and convicted for lying to federal investigators and the FBI.
“Here we have a case of an FBI agent lying to an FBI agent,” Sen. Kennedy said. “If the Justice Department and FBI are going to maintain any credibility, it seems to me that they have to treat everybody equally under the law.”
“And once again, if Mr. McCabe did lie to an FBI agent, he should be prosecuted with great vengeance and furious anger,” he added. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
