Rand Paul: Mueller probe ‘politically motivated,’ ‘goes even back to the Clintons’

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Sunday that the Robert Mueller’s Russia probe is an example of why the U.S. should not have special prosecutors and pointed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) as “truly unconstitutional and the root of the problem we should be addressing.” 

“I think since the very beginning this has been politically motivated and now both sides are doing it,” he told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week.” “It goes back to the Clintons.”

{mosads}Paul said that because the Mueller report found no evidence of an underlying crime, the “best thing we can do at this point is say ‘let’s get on with the country’s business.'”

While a debate has raged over the past week over whether the impasse between two branches of government constitutes a constitutional crisis, Paul said the underlying constitutional issue is whether the FISA court “which is supposed to spy on foreigners, which has a lower constitutional standard, can you use the FISA court to spy on a presidential campaign?”

Sen. Rand Paul on Mueller probe: “I think since the very beginning this all has been politically motivated. Now both sides are doing it. I think it goes back even to the Clintons. This is why we shouldn’t have special prosecutors” https://t.co/s5XgPCmrVq pic.twitter.com/A69JAu6gOR

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 12, 2019

“That, truly, is a travesty and truly is unconstitutional and is the root of the problem we should be addressing,” he added.

Eight House conservatives in a letter to President Trump in March argued that the declassification of some documents related to the Mueller investigation was necessary to find out “how Congress, the courts, and the American people were misled by Department of Justice leadership into a two-year investigation that failed to discover any evidence of Russian collusion.”

The lawmakers said they wanted the Trump administration to declassify the FISA applications for former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and other key documents related to the Steele dossier, including information on the Justice Department official’s contact with Christopher Steele, who authored the controversial dossier.

The lawmakers cited the Mueller investigation closing with no additional indictments as further reason to release the documents.