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US attorney general: FBI‘spied’ on Trump campaign

Ag AFP

WASHINGTON: The US attorney general told Congress Wednesday he believes the FBI spied on President Donald Trump´s election campaign and said he is opening an investigation into whether it was justified. Amid fresh charges by Trump that he was the target of an “attempted coup,” Bill Barr told lawmakers the FBI may have gone too far in opening a counterintelligence probe into Trump´s 2016 operation. “Spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” Barr told the Senate Appropriations Committee. “I think spying did occur. The question is, was it was adequately predicated? I´m not saying it wasn´t,” he said. Barr confirmed he was opening a review into whether the investigation, which eventually became Special Counsel Robert Mueller´s collusion and obstruction probe, was justified. “This is not launching an investigation of the FBI,” he insisted, while adding: “I think there was probably a failure among a group of leaders at the upper echelon” of the FBI.