Lindsey Graham backs calls for special counsel to probe the FBI

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Wednesday that now is the time for a special counsel to launch an inquiry into FBI snooping and its handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

“If there was ever a moment for a special counsel, it is now,” Mr. Graham said on “The Hugh Hewitt Show.”

The comments come after Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Bob Godlatte, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions requesting that he appoint a special counsel to look into allegations of wrongdoing by current and former FBI officials.

“The FBI agents in charge hated [President] Trump and skewed the investigation, I think, favorably to Clinton in terms of the email investigation,” Mr. Graham said. “I think there was corruption at the Department of Justice in terms of handling the email investigation of Clinton. I think they had a political bias that resulted in ignoring facts that would have put everybody else in jail who had done those things, and I think the warrant, FISA warrant application, was rotten to the core.”

“The only evidence they really had was the dossier prepared by the guy on the payroll with the Democratic Party, and they never really informed the court,” he said.

In their letter to Mr. Sessions on Tuesday, Mr. Gowdy and Mr. Goodlatte said the investigation they are seeking would be separate from special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

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They said a special counsel would have more power than the inspector general at the Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI, when it comes to compelling former employees to talk.

“There is evidence of bias, trending toward animus, among those charged with investigating serious cases,” the two lawmakers said. “There is evidence political opposition research was used in court filings. There is evidence this political opposition research was neither vetted before it was used nor fully revealed to the relevant tribunal.”