Attorney General William Barr said that he’ll keep using the word “spying” when talking about how the FBI used human informants and other surveillance methods to probe the campaign of President Donald Trump, calling it “a good English word.”
Barr appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 1 to answer questions about the Mueller report.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) took issue with Barr describing the surveillance of the Trump campaign as “spying,” suggesting the term wasn’t accurate because the activities of the FBI and Department of Justice were “authorized.”
Barr said he disagreed.
“I’m not going to abjure the use of the word ‘spying,’” Barr said. “My first job was in CIA. I don’t think the word ‘spying’ has any pejorative connotation at all.”
Barr then said the word is aptly used to describe what took place.
“I think spying is a good English word that, in fact, doesn’t have synonyms because it is the broadest word incorporating really all forms of covert intelligence collection, so I’m not going to back off the word ‘spying,'” he said.
The attorney general noted that until the stories were about surveillance on the Trump campaign, media outlets regularly used the word “spying” when reporting on the activities of the FISA court and other related issues, with many referring to the court as “the spy court.”
“Frankly, we went back and looked at press usage and up until all the faux outrage a couple of weeks ago, it’s commonly used in the press to refer to authorized activities,” Barr said.
“It’s not commonly used by the Department,” Whitehouse said.
“It’s commonly used by me,” Barr replied.
The back-and-forth cames during a contentious hearing in which Barr was accused of being a liar by leading Democrats. Republicans focused on the origin of the probe into Trump’s campaign and got confirmation from the attorney general that the origin is under investigation.
Whitehouse’s line of questioning came after Barr said during a hearing on April 10: “I think spying did occur.”
There had been a number of indicators that the Trump campaign was under surveillance but Barr’s comments came the closest to an official acknowledgement of what took place.
Barr was asked during that hearing about his intent to form a team to probe potential surveillance abuses against the Trump campaign.
“As I said in my confirmation hearing, I am going to be reviewing both the genesis and the conduct of intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign during 2016. A lot of this has already been investigated, a substantial portion of it has been investigated and is being investigated by the Office of the Inspector General at the department,” he said.
“But one of the things I want to do is pull together all the information from the various investigations that have gone on, including on the [Capitol] Hill and in the [Justice] Department, and see if there are any remaining questions to be addressed.”
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) responded, “And can you share with us why you feel a need to do that?”
“I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal, it’s a big deal,” Barr said.
“The generation I grew up in, which is the Vietnam War period, people were all concerned about spying on anti-war people and so forth by the government and there were a lot of rules put in place to make sure that there’s an adequate basis before our law enforcement agencies get involved in political surveillance,” he added.
“I’m not suggesting that those rules were violated, but I think it’s important to look at that. And I’m not talking about the FBI necessarily, but intelligence agencies more broadly.”
Shaheen continued, “So you’re not suggesting, though, that spying occurred?”
“I think spying did occur. Yes, I think spying did occur,” Barr said, followed by a moment of silence in the room.
“The question is whether it was predicated, adequately predicated,” he continued. “And I’m not suggesting it wasn’t adequately predicated, but I need to explore that. I think it’s my obligation.”
Epoch Times reporter Petr Savb contributed to this report.
