Barr signals the launch of his own 'witch hunt' of Mueller's investigation

Attorney General William Barr's pledge to release Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report within a week, complete with color-coded redactions, was the splashiest news from Barr's testimony before the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday. But Barr also told the House he's "reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms around all the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted during the summer of 2016" into members of President Trump's campaign and Russia. That investigation eventually led to Mueller's probe.

In fact, Bloomberg News reports, Barr has already "assembled a team to review controversial counterintelligence decisions made by Justice Department and FBI officials, including actions taken during the probe of the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016." Trump and his Republican allies have called for an investigation into what they call Mueller's "witch hunt," and during Tuesday's hearing, Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) asked Barr if the Justice Department is investigating "how it came to be that your agency used a salacious and unverified dossier as a predicate for FISA order on a U.S. citizen?"

He was referring to the "dossier" of raw intelligence on Trump compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. It's not clear how much of the dossier has been verified. "Republicans and Fox News hosts have repeatedly — and falsely — claimed that the Russia investigations 'started with this dossier,'" says Matt Stieb at New York.

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"In reality, the FBI interest in the Trump campaign began with a different mediator, George Papadopoulos, who drunkenly told to an Australian diplomat he had thousands of emails of dirt on the Clinton campaign," Stieb continues. "If Barr is determined to investigate counterintelligence decisions made by the DOJ and FBI regarding the Mueller report, it appears he's doubling down on his prioritization to protect the president over his role as the chief lawyer of the United States."

Trump's GOP allies welcomed Barr's interest in investigating the Mueller's investigation's origins.