U.S. Senate judiciary panel head wants special counsel to look at origins of Trump probe

WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) - The Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said on Monday he will ask Attorney General William Barr to appoint a special counsel to look into the origins of the probe of whether President Donald Trump's campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

A day after the attorney general said the report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller found that nobody from Trump's campaign conspired with Russia, Senator Lindsey Graham said "we will begin to unpack the other side of the story."

He said it was time to look at the Clinton campaign and the origins of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant for former Trump adviser Carter Page, which was based in part on information in a dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer who co-founded a private intelligence firm.

Republicans lawmakers have contended the FBI made serious missteps when it sought the warrant to monitor Page in October 2016 shortly after he left the Trump campaign.

Republicans said the FBI failed to disclose that Steele was hired by a firm funded by Democrats to do opposition research on Trump's business dealings.

However, Steele was initially contracted by FusionGPS, a Washington-based political research firm, to investigate Trump on behalf of unidentified Republicans who wanted to stop Trump's bid for the party's nomination.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/us-senate-judiciary-panel-head-wants-special-counsel-to-look-at-origins-of-trump-probe/ar-BBVd3dj?li=BBnb7Kz

Quick! Get Lindsey his smelling salts. He's getting confused.