On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “AC360,” Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) reacted to President Trump’s order that the intelligence community cooperate with Attorney General William Barr’s investigation into surveillance during the 2016 election by stating that “it seems much more like an effort to distract with, frankly, a dull, rusty object, not a bright, shiny one.”

Blumenthal said, “As a former United States attorney and a state attorney general for some 20 years, I am baffled by this memorandum. There seems absolutely no reason for it. Agencies have a legal obligation to cooperate with the attorney general of the United States, and it seems much more like an effort to distract with, frankly, a dull, rusty object, not a bright, shiny one. And I think that we already have two investigations ongoing into this area. The Mueller report contains graphic detail about how the investigation got started with credible information about Russian spying, that the FBI began addressing through a counterintelligence investigation. So, the need for this memorandum, or whatever it is, in fact, seems far from apparent.”

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