Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is urging foreign leaders to cooperate with Attorney General Bill Barr’s efforts to investigate the investigators.
As he promised earlier this week, Graham wrote to the prime ministers of Australia, Italy and the United Kingdom on Wednesday asking the leaders to assist Barr in his efforts to “investigate the origins and extent of foreign influence in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.” Many have characterized Barr’s investigation as an effort to actually discredit Mueller’s probe.
After reports surfaced this week that President Trump and Barr have attempted to communicate with at least three different countries’ leaders to gather information about the origins of the Russia probe, Graham told Fox News that Barr was just doing his job. He expanded on that sentiment further in the letter.
“One of the principal duties of the U.S. attorney general is to supervise ongoing investigations within the Justice Department. Moreover, as you are undoubtedly aware, Australia, Italy and the United Kingdom routinely exchange law enforcement information with each other to assist in the course of investigations,” he wrote. “That the attorney general is holding meetings with your countries to aid in the Justice Department’s investigation of what happened is well within the bounds of his normal activities.”
Earlier this week, Graham argued that the reports on Barr’s global efforts to discredit the probe were just a coordinated effort by the media to “shut down” his investigation. Barr has long heartily embraced President Trump and other prominent Republicans’ “investigate the investigators” posture toward Mueller’s report, believing that U.S. intelligence agencies acted improperly in securing a warrant to surveil a member of President Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Read the letter below:
