Chuck Ross, DCNF

A former top lawyer at the FBI provided “explosive” testimony to Congress on Wednesday regarding the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, lawmakers said.

James Baker, who served as the FBI’s general counsel until May, told Congress that a previously unidentified source provided information to the FBI for its investigation, which began on July 31, 2016.

“During the time that the FBI was putting — that [the Department of Justice] and FBI were putting together the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act surveillance warrant] during the time prior to the election — there was another source giving information directly to the FBI, which we found the source to be pretty explosive,” Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan said after a hearing, according to Fox News.

As the FBI’s top attorney, Baker was directly involved in handling applications for the FISA warrants granted against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Baker was interviewed behind closed doors as part of a congressional task force’s investigation into the FBI’s possible abuse of the FISA process. Republican lawmakers have expressed concerns that the Page FISAs relied heavily on the unverified Steele dossier.

The document, which was funded by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee, was cited extensively in the FBI’s applications to spy on Page.

“Some of the things that were shared were explosive in nature,” North Carolina GOP Rep. Mark Meadows told Fox regarding Baker’s interview. “This witness confirmed that things were done in an abnormal fashion. That’s extremely troubling.”

Jordan and Meadows did not provide additional details about what information Baker shared or who the FBI’s source was. They said that congressional investigators were not aware of the source until Baker’s testimony.

Meadows said earlier on Wednesday that he has seen evidence that “confidential human sources” used by the FBI “actually taped members within the Trump campaign.”

“There is strong suggestions in that some of the text messages, emails, and so forth who was involved, that extraordinary measures were used to surveil,” Meadows told Hill.TV.

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