Trump Again Attacks Sessions, This Time for FISA Investigation

• February 28 2018
• Margaret Talev, Chris Strohm

“Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy?”

President Donald Trump again attacked beleaguered Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday, this time for not ordering the Justice Department to investigate the agency’s use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in its Russia probe.

Sessions instead has asked the department’s inspector general to investigate the matter, Trump said. The office of the inspector general said it is aware of a referral from the Justice Department and declined further comment.

“Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse?” the U.S. president wrote in a tweet that was also critical of the IG, Michael Horowitz. “Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc. Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!”

Horowitz is investigating the FBI and Justice Department’s handling of an investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email arrangements. Trump fired FBI director James Comey last year in part, he said, because of that investigation.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the tweet.

Sessions told reporters on Tuesday that the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General would look into Republican claims that FISA standards were abused in the lead-up to an FBI investigation into Trump campaign associates and ties to Russians. Trump’s decision to weigh in adds new fuel to concerns about presidential interference that could undermine the independence of the Justice Department.

“The inspector general will take that as one of the matters they’ll deal with,” Sessions said on Tuesday, concluding that it is “just the appropriate thing.”

— With assistance by Toluse Olorunnipa