President Trump this week gave Attorney General William Barr new authorities to examine and possibly release classified material related to the Justice Department’s inquiry into the origins of the Russia investigation.
The move is widely perceived as an effort by Trump to ramp up his administration’s probe of surveillance directed at members of his 2016 campaign. The president and his allies have suggested that federal agents biased against him improperly initiated the investigation into Russia’s election interference.
Barr said last month he would examine the “genesis and conduct” of the Russia probe, adding that he believed the Trump campaign was “spied” on and wanted to ensure it was “adequately predicated.” Those remarks drew fire from Democrats, who accused him of advancing a conspiracy theory.
View the complete May 25 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.
President Trump’s new executive order giving the attorney general broad authority to declassify government secrets threatens to expose U.S. intelligence sources and could distort the FBI and CIA’s roles in investigating Russian interference in the 2016 elections, current and former U.S. officials said.
As the Justice Department charges WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act, we speak to Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. In 1971, he was charged with violating the Espionage Act for leaking a top-secret report on U.S. involvement in Vietnam to The New York Times and other publications. At the time, Ellsberg faced over 100 years in prison. He tells Democracy Now!, “There hasn’t actually been such a significant attack on the freedom of the press … since my case in 1971.”
WASHINGTON — When Attorney General William P. Barr described the early stages of the Russia investigation as “spying” on the Trump campaign, he prompted questions about whether he had used that word spontaneously — or whether he was deliberately fueling conspiracy theories.