Congressman Calls on Barr to Aggressively Investigate Those Responsible for Russia Probe

Alabama Rep. Morris Jackson “Mo” Brooks Jr. (R-Ala.) recently weighed in on special counsel Robert Mueller’s statement on his investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election, saying that the federal employees responsible for initiating the probe should be investigated for alleged crimes.

Brooks made his comments during an appearance on AL radio’s “The Dale Jackson Show” on WVNN on May 31. The host Dale Jackson and the congressman discussed Mueller’s May 29 press conference amid recent calls from Democrats to impeach President Donald Trump.

During the interview, Brooks claimed Mueller allegedly knew shortly after he was appointed as special counsel that there was no evidence of collusion but continued with the investigation for political reasons. He said one recourse for the investigation that took over two years is for Attorney General William Barr to investigate how the probe went on for so long and to uncover any crimes from the people involved.

Dale and Congressman Mo Brooks discuss Mueller’s press conference and Trump’s tariffs on Mexico – … https://t.co/dHDlZxwXDi via @Audioboom — Dale Jackson (@TheDaleJackson) May 31, 2019

“On the executive branch side, Barr on his own can be and should be investigating how this got that far wasting this amount of taxpayer dollars. At some point in this process, there was somebody who made false statements about alleged Russian collusion to someone in the executive branch,” Brooks said.

“That is obstruction of justice. That is making false statements to law enforcement officers. And those people, whoever those people are, they need to be uncovered, and they need to be prosecuted because they’re the ones who are responsible for this two-year debacle, this two-year investigation, this waste of $35 million investigating a non-event,” he added.

Jackson then asked whether they were ever going to catch those people involved, to which Brooks replied, “I do not know.”

“I certainly hope so. And I hope that this attorney general will be aggressive and get to the bottom of it because the people who are engaged in these kinds of lies, this kind of wasting of taxpayer money, should not get away with it. We should catch them,” he said.

“We should put them in jail to the maximum term allowed by law, because we should never allow federal government employees to go rogue, to try to engage in what in effect a coup d’état against a sitting president of the United States. That is serious, and that needs to be dealt with seriously,” he said.

Previously, Barr had vowed to look into the origins of the Russia interference probe and the extent of the FBI surveillance on Trump’s campaign during the 2016 presidential election.

At the Senate hearing on May 1, Barr said he was currently working closely with FBI Director Christopher Wray “on trying to reconstruct exactly what went down.”

“Many people seem to assume that the only intelligence collection that occurred was a single confidential informant and a FISA warrant. I’d like to find out whether that is in fact true,” Barr said, when asked whether other improper conduct took place apart from the alleged misconduct with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

“It strikes me as a fairly anemic effort if that was the counterintelligence effort designed to stop a threat as it’s being represented,” he added.

Mueller formally announced an end to the Russia investigation as well as his resignation at the department during a press conference at the Justice Department on May 29. He added that he would not make further comments about the investigation and said anyone with further inquiries about the probe should refer to his more than 400-page report as his testimony.

The special counsel’s report concluded that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election. Moreover, Mueller did not make a determination as to whether the president obstructed justice, later saying it was due to a DOJ policy which prohibits charging a sitting president with a federal crime.

Barr argued in a recent interview that Mueller’s reason for not making a determination was not true.

“I personally felt he could’ve reached a decision,” Barr said during an interview with CBS on May 30. Barr said Mueller “had his reasons” for not making a recommendation but declined to explain, adding: “I’m not going to, you know, argue about those reasons.”

Barr said the office’s opinion was relevant but didn’t prohibit what Mueller thought it did.

“The opinion says you cannot indict a president while he is in office, but he could’ve reached a decision as to whether it was criminal activity,” Barr said.

NTD reporter Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.