President Trump spoke Thursday night with Sean Hannity about Attorney General William Barr’s ongoing "investigation of the investigators" related to the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation and the actions taken by the Justice Department and the FBI.

Hannity told Trump that, as president, he had “the power to literally release” the FISA applications targeting former Trump campaign associate Carter Page, along with other classified FBI interviews. Hannity then expressed his curiosity regarding why Trump gave that authority to Barr.

Trump then heaped praise on Barr, calling him “a very respected gentleman” and “a very high-quality person” who is “working so hard.”

“And rather than just doing a total release, I gave him a total release, in other words, he’s got everything, anything he needs, he's got it,” Trump explained. “He is the attorney general of the United States, but he's got a lot of very good people under him that I guess are involved and I gave him a total release so all of it has been released and he has all of it.”

Barr rankled Democrats earlier this year when he said "spying did occur" on the Trump campaign, and when he refused to back down, calling “spying” a “good English word.”

“I’ve also given him authorization to release it to whoever he wants,” Trump said of Barr.

Trump then suggested that this information could be declassified and then released to members of Barr’s team or even to Republican California Rep. Devin Nunes, a fierce Trump defender and the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee.

Back in May, Trump gave Barr “full and complete authority to declassify information … in accordance with the long-established standards for handling classified information” related to the origins of the federal investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

