FOX NEWS – Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday sided with his successor, Bill Barr, over FBI Director Christopher Wray in describing bureau surveillance of Trump associates during the 2016 presidential campaign as “spying.”
Attorney General William Barr used the word “spying” when describing the reported FBI surveillance of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Barr has said [he believes “spying” did occur on the 2016 Trump campaign] while FBI Director Wray said [he wouldn’t use the word “spying” to describe the FBI’s surveillance activity.]
When asked about the recent split between Barr and Wray over the word, Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions said “I think spying is a perfectly good word.” This he said during an on-stage interview at the SALT Conference in Las Vegas, which is hosted by Anthony Scaramucci, a former member of the Trump administration’s communications team.
On Tuesday, Wray testified to a budget panel that he would not use the word “spying.”
“That’s not the term I would use,” Wray testified. “To me the key question is making sure it’s done by the book, consistent with our lawful authorities. That’s the key question; different people use different colloquial phrases.”
WASHINGTON EXAMINER – Former FBI Director James Comey, who led the bureau when it opened its counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016, said “the FBI doesn’t spy, the FBI investigates.”
Following revelations that the FBI sent an undercover agent to meet with George Papadopoulos in London in 2016, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper conceded that what the FBI had been doing “meets the dictionary definition of spying.”
Sessions also noted that FBI’s use of undercover agents could be considered spying, adding that he wants to see more facts come out.
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