South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said he is sending a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray asking for an explanation of DOJ policy after news of a troubling incident five years ago involving a top Democratic senator and a suspected Chinese spy.
“Why didn’t they do for Trump what they did for Feinstein?” he asked. “What the hell is going on at the FBI?”
Harris Faulkner added that if the FBI indeed was concerned about counter-intelligence versus its alleged partisan leanings, it also should have informed Trump of then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s past alleged indiscretions. – READ MORE
Revelations that Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s former driver and aide was probed by the FBI for allegedly acting as a Chinese spy have spurred claims of a double standard concerning how the bureau handled suspicions of Russian coordination with the Trump campaign.
The California Democrat, in a statement last week, said the FBI informed her of its concerns regarding the staffer in her San Francisco office five years ago. Feinstein said she then ousted the staffer “immediately.”
But this has renewed questions among President Trump’s allies about the bureau’s approach in 2016 to suspicions regarding his campaign aides’ potential Russian ties. In one case, the FBI briefed Feinstein; in the other, the bureau proceeded to use an informant and surveillance warrants to get information on Trump campaign figures.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., who has been a staunch Trump defender throughout the federal probe into Russian meddling and potential collusion with his campaign, complained that Feinstein and Trump were handled differently.
“Providing a defensive briefing, like the one given to Senator Feinstein, is a typical response to these kinds of situations,” Nunes said in a statement to Fox News. “The refusal to give the Trump campaign a defensive briefing, and instead opening a sprawling counter-intelligence investigation of American citizens, is one of many alarming ways that intelligence leaders drastically diverged from normal procedures in their Trump campaign investigation.”
The FBI reportedly informed Feinstein, then-chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, about the spy allegations. The suspected spy served as Feinstein’s driver in California, but also took on additional responsibilities in the office, such as working as a liaison to the Asian-American community in California.- READ MORE
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