Former Top Prosecutor Explains Why Obama Needs To Be Held to Account for Russia Investigation
Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy said Tuesday that the purpose of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation launched against the Trump campaign in 2016 would have been for the benefit of then-President Barack Obama.
Fox News host Bill Hemmer suggested to McCarthy — a 20-year veteran U.S. attorney, who successfully led the prosecution against the “Blind Sheikh” (Omar Abdel Rahman) and other perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing — that Obama had to be curious about the investigation.
“I think more than curious,” McCarthy responded. “I feel sometimes when we make this distinction between counterintelligence and criminal investigations people’s eyes glaze over, but it really is important.”
He pointed out that counterintelligence investigations are “done for the president.”
“The only reason that you do counterintelligence investigations is for the FBI, as our domestic security service, to support the president’s constitutional duty to protect the United States from foreign threats,” McCarthy said.
The National Review contributing editor reiterated, “They’re the president’s investigations.”
Watch starting at 6:14 mins.
Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary under George W. Bush, argued that with the release of the Mueller report showing no collusion, attention should shift to looking into the Obama administration’s decision to initiate the probe.
“They spied on a U.S. campaign, wiretapped Americans, bit on the dossier and unmasked (Michael) Flynn.
“What did Barack Obama know and what and when did he authorize it?” Fleischer asked, mimicking a famous line from the Watergate investigation referring to Richard Nixon.
Now that Mueller says there was no collusion, it is time to scrutinize the Obama Administration. They spied on a US campaign, wiretapped Americans, bit on the dossier and unmasked Flynn. What did Barack Obama know and what and when did he authorize it?
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) March 24, 2019
The Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman in a piece titled, “Mueller and the Obama Accounting,” argued at a “bare minimum” Obama “owes the country an explanation.”
“The Mueller report confirms that the Obama administration, without evidence, turned the surveillance powers of the federal government against the presidential campaign of the party out of power,” Freeman wrote.
“This historic abuse of executive authority was either approved by President Barack Obama or it was not,” he continued.
“It’s time for Mr. Obama, who oddly receives few mentions in stories about his government’s spying on associates of the 2016 Trump campaign, to say what he knew and did not know about the targeting of his party’s opponents.”
Former Reagan administration official Jeffrey Lord in the American Spectator called for Attorney General William Barr to select a special counsel to look into what part Obama played in the investigation, as well as key members of his administration.
“When will Attorney General Barr appoint a special prosecutor to do some serious transparency — to look into the role of President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Clinton, CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey and all of his FBI minions?” Lord asked.
He added that if House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler really wants to unearth scandalous conduct during the 2016 race, he should direct his attention away from Trump and his associates and toward the Obama administration.
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