Vice President Mike Pence offered his full-throated support of President Trump’s most recent crusade — demands for a Justice Department inspector general probe of the FBI’s motivations for hiring an informant to speak to members of his campaign.
During an interview with Fox News’ Martha MacCallum, Pence said Trump was “grateful” that the Justice Department had asked the inspector general to investigate whether the informant was dispatched for political reasons and claimed “millions of Americans” would be distraught if that were the case.
“The President is, I think, grateful, that the Department of Justice is going to have the inspector general look into it and determine, and ensure, that there was no surveillance done for political purposes against our campaign,” he said. “I think it would be very troubling to millions of Americans if that took place.”
.@VP Pence on reports of FBI surveillance of the Trump campaign: "I think it would be very troubling to millions of Americans if that took place." https://t.co/Aj8Sv7zJRy
See the @VP's full interview tonight on @TheStoryFNC with @marthamaccallum at 7p ET on Fox News Channel. pic.twitter.com/pJS8fILr0n
— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 21, 2018
Over the weekend, Trump seized on reports that a government informant spoke with two Trump campaign officials as a way of probing Russian interference in the election without compromising the vote. He tweeted Sunday a “demand” for the DOJ probe, and the department asked the inspector general to look into it.