- The Washington Times - Friday, August 14, 2020

President Trump said Friday the expected guilty plea from a former FBI lawyer for wrongdoing in the Russia collusion probe was “just the beginning.”

The former FBI official, Kevin Clinesmith, will plead guilty Friday to falsifying a key document used to surveil ex-Trump campaign associate Carter Page, his lawyer confirmed.

Mr. Trump called the FBI investigation of his campaign, which morphed into a special counsel probe that overshadowed his administration for three years, a “terrible thing.”

“So that’s just the beginning, I imagine. Because what happened should never happen again,” he told reporters in the White House briefing room. “Terrible thing. The fact is they spied on my campaign and got caught.”

The indictment of Mr. Kevin Clinesmith, 38, is the first charge from U.S. Attorney John Durham’s criminal inquiry into the origins of the FBI’s Trump-Russia collusion investigation.

• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.

• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.

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