Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) told Hill.TV on Tuesday he hopes the intelligence community continues to investigate any suspected Russian meddling in future U.S. elections but questioned the “next step” of investigating a presidential campaign.
“If they wanted to open an investigation in the summer of 2016 into what the Russians were doing, I’m glad they did it,” Byrne said on “Rising.” “I hope they’ll do it in the future if they have any indication if they are. I suspect that they will.”
“But it’s another thing to go forward and say we’re going to investigate a presidential campaign,” he continued. “So it’s that next step that I think caused a lot of people to say wait a minute what’s going on here?”
Byrne, who is challenging Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) in 2020, introduced the Investigate the Investigators Act last week, echoing calls from President Trump to probe those who launched an investigation into suspected ties between his 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.
Democrats, in turn, have said the argument is a conspiracy theory aimed at creating a distraction ahead of 2020.
“When you see the email exchange between Strzok and Page, you know it was partisan. There’s no question it was partisan,” Byrne said. “So, unfortunately, we’ve got to make sure we have accountability in that system.”
— Julia Manchester
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