As usual, Vice President Mike Pence parroted the party line Friday, saying that he finds the FBI’s efforts to determine wither Russia was using the Trump campaign to interfere in the election — termed “spying” by Attorney General William Barr — “very troubling.”

“We’ve got to get to the bottom of how all this started,” he told Fox News’ Sandra Smith. “The American people have a right to know how this investigation even began.”

“And as the attorney general said when he testified before Congress, there was spying,” he continued. “We need to understand…whether there was a sufficient predicate. We need to get to the bottom of how this all began and if there was a violation of the rules, if the law was broken, the people that were responsible need to be held accountable.”

Pence: “We need to get to the bottom” of the FBI’s “spying” on the Trump campaign pic.twitter.com/xcGXE1mwlE — TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) May 3, 2019

Barr’s use of the term “spying,” first said during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, has significant connotations and has become fodder for Trump’s allies. President Donald Trump and his lackeys insist that a biased FBI was trying to undermine his candidacy; intelligence officials say they were trying to prevent the Russians from hacking the American election and that their actions were legitimate and necessary.