| | | Graham Calls for Special Counsel to Probe Bruce Ohr
Justice Department official investigating Trump whose wife worked for Fusion GPS was 'at least unethical,' South Carolina senator says
By Kathryn Blackhurst | Sunday, August 12, 2018
lifezette.com
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called Sunday for a special counsel to investigate the “unethical” role of former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr in the FBI’s probe of President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Ohr’s wife, Nellie, was an employee of Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm used by 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign to obtain negative allegations against Trump from sources linked to Russian interests.
“Bruce Ohr was at least unethical. We need a special counsel to look at all things Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI when it came to the Trump investigation, particularly the counterintelligence investigation,” Graham (pictured above) said during an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”
Fusion GPS was paid by Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which she then controlled. The payments were made through Perkins Coie, a law firm that specializes in representing Democratic candidates and causes.
Fusion GPS in turn used former British spy Christopher Steele to compile the negative information in what became known as the “Steele Dossier,” used by the FBI to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court approval to spy on former Trump campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page.
Graham, a member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary that oversees the DOJ, said a special counsel should look into Bruce Ohr and his work on the “biased” and “unethical” investigation into Trump’s campaign.
“Both campaigns were investigated by the FBI and the Department of Justice in 2016,” Graham said, pointing to the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s use of a private home-brew email server to conduct official U.S. diplomatic business as secretary of state between 2009 and 2013.
She was absolved by former FBI Director James Comey in July 2016 even though the bureau found that hundreds of highly classified information and documents were compromised by Clinton’s actions.
“When it came to the Clinton campaign, she got a pass. The criminal investigation of the Clinton campaign was a joke,” Graham insisted. “When it came to the Trump campaign, it was corrupt, it was biased and I think unethical. Mr. Ohr should not have had any role in investigating the Trump campaign because his wife worked at Fusion GPS.”
House Committee on the Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) is preparing to subpoena Ohr to testify before his committee.
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that there should be “an investigation into these top-level people as to how somebody concocted the idea that it’s okay to take information from one political campaign and use it to open up an investigation on the other political campaign, on somebody else’s opposing political party.”
“The only way there could be accountability is one step at a time and it deals with full and complete transparencies,” Nunes said.
Nunes also took aim at Clinton and her campaign, claiming that they colluded with “nearly every top” DOJ and FBI official, as well as from Russian interests linked to that country’s intelligence services.
“So here you have information flowing from the Clinton campaign from the Russians, likely I believe was handed directly from Russian propaganda arms to the Clinton campaign, fed into the top levels of the FBI and Department of Justice to open up a counter intelligence investigation into a political campaign that has now colluded [with] nearly every top official at the DOJ and FBI over the course of the last couple years,” Nunes said. “Absolutely amazing.”
Trump took to Twitter Saturday to slam Ohr, writing, “The big story that the Fake News Media refuses to report is lowlife Christopher Steele’s many meetings with Deputy A.G. Bruce Ohr and his beautiful wife, Nelly. It was Fusion GPS that hired Steele to write the phony & discredited Dossier, paid for by Crooked Hillary & the DNC……Do you believe Nelly worked for Fusion and her husband STILL WORKS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ‘JUSTICE.’ I have never seen anything so Rigged in my life. Our A.G. is scared stiff and Missing in Action. It is all starting to be revealed – not pretty. IG Report soon? Witch Hunt!” |
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