Attorney General William Barr says that he does not believe that the former top government officials involved in heading up the investigation into possible ties between Donald Trump and the Russian government were involved in treasonous activity, parting ways with comments made by President Trump in recent days. In an interview on CBS that aired on Thursday evening, Barr said that he did not think those members of the Justice Department and the FBI committed treason — at least “not as a legal matter.”

Barr’s comments stand in contrast to controversial remarks made by Trump at the White House earlier in May. Referring to an alleged attempt to bring down his presidency, Trump named former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and former FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok as officials who had, in his view, “unsuccessfully tried to take down the wrong person.”

“And that’s treason,” Trump said.

Treason as defined in Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution “shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

Barr did not agree with Trump that anyone’s actions had crossed that line. When CBS chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford asked if he thinks “that they committed treason”, Barr replied, “Not as a legal matter.”

Crawford then followed up, asking, “But you have concerns about how they conducted the investigation?”

“Yes, but, you know, sometimes people can convince themselves that what they’re doing is in the higher interest and the better good,” Barr answered. “They don’t realize that what they’re doing is really antithetical to the democratic system that we have.”

Earlier this month, Trump gave Barr "full and complete authority to declassify information" related to the origins of the federal investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

[ Related: James Comey: Trump's treason talk is a 'dumb lie']

CBS NEWS EXCLUSIVE: AG Bill Barr tells @JanCBS that Robert Mueller "could've reached a conclusion" on charging Pres. Trump with obstruction of justice, regardless of DOJ policy that prohibits indicting a sitting president.



Here's a preview ahead of Friday’s @CBSThisMorning pic.twitter.com/23w07lBAE6 — CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) May 30, 2019

The move was the strongest sign yet that Trump is taking serious action to "investigate the investigators" and has found a willing champion in Barr, who rankled Democrats last month when he said "spying did occur" on the Trump campaign.

Last week, the White House issued a memorandum to the heads of several agencies instructing them to cooperate with Barr's inquiry, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Department, the State Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Treasury Department, the Homeland Security Department, and the Energy Department.

Earlier this week, Trump said that “I think in the end I will consider what’s happening now to be one of my greatest achievements — exposing this corruption.”

In his interview with CBS, Barr again defended his use of the word “spying” to refer to the government’s use of informants and its electronic surveillance through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

“I guess it’s become a dirty word somehow. It’s never been for me. I think there’s nothing wrong with spying,” Barr said. “The question is always whether it’s authorized by law and properly predicated. And if it is, it’s an important tool that the United States has to protect the count.”

Barr has selected U.S. Attorney John Durham as his right hand man to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation and the way that the DOJ and FBI conducted themselves during it.

Beyond that, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz has been looking into potential Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse since early 2018 and is “homing in” on the potential misuse of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s unverified dossier by the DOJ and FBI.

Steele’s dossier, which was packed with unverified claims about Trump's ties to Russia, formed a key part of the FISA applications that were used to justify surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Steele was working for Fusion GPS, which received funding through the Perkins Coie law firm from the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Steele's Democratic benefactors were not revealed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Barr has said Horowitz's probe should be done by May or June.