Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John Cornyn (R-TX) are urging the appointment of a special counsel to investigate allegations made by the Trump administration against former President Barack Obama and senior members of his administration.
The calls come after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released documents last week related to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, which resulted in President Donald Trump’s victory. Following the release, Gabbard, Trump, and their allies have claimed the materials reveal evidence of a “treasonous conspiracy” orchestrated by Obama to undermine Trump.
Though outlets such as National Review, The Wall Street Journal, and Fox News’ Andy McCarthy have dismissed that interpretation, Gabbard nonetheless stated Wednesday that the administration was actively considering legal action against Obama. Meanwhile, Graham and Cornyn emphasized that “appointing an independent special counsel would do the country a tremendous service in this case.”
“With every piece of information that gets released, it becomes more evident that the entire Russia collusion hoax was created by the Obama administration to subvert the will of the American people,” the two senators said in a joint statement.
Editorials from both The Wall Street Journal and National Review noted that former Special Counsel John Durham had already conducted an investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.
“Mr. Trump is still angry, understandably so, about the lurid and fictional Steele dossier and how he was dragged down an empty ‘collusion’ rabbit hole. Yet special counsel John Durham has already picked over this episode,” the Journal wrote.
National Review added, “Special counsel John Durham, who was tapped by the Trump I DOJ to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, spent four exhaustive years on the probe. As his 306-page report concludes, the Clinton campaign was principally responsible for fabricating the story, and the FBI was recklessly irresponsible in opening a full investigation and using the dossier in court without rudimentary verification steps. But he drew the correct conclusion that ‘even horribly bad judgment’ and ‘unseemly or unethical conduct’ are not crimes absent violation of a particular criminal statute.”
