Freedom Caucus chairman: Who was FBI informant reporting to?

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, on Sunday questioned the origins of an informant alleged to have been embedded in President Trump’s presidential campaign, saying it is “not right” for a “spy” to be collecting information.

“We do know there was, indeed, a confidential human source that was giving intelligence not only to the FBI … but you have to ask the question when did it start?” Meadows said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“The question begs, at whose direction, what were they collecting and who were they reporting to?”{mosads}

Meadows said he has nonclassified information — including text messages — that acknowledge the existence of an informant.

“[The spying] was happening before the FBI opened an investigation [into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia], we know that from nonclassified sources,” he said. “There’s no question there was a spy collecting information [on the campaign.]”

Trump and his allies have repeatedly referred to the informant as a spy, sometimes saying it was someone embedded in the Trump campaign. News reports indicate the informant was an American professor in England who was not embedded within Trump’s campaign.

Use of the informant originated under former President Obama’s Justice Department and before Robert Mueller’s appointment as special counsel.

Obama administration officials have said the FBI’s use of an informant in counterintelligence investigations is not unusual. 

Meadows, however, cast doubt on the normality of the informant’s alleged role in the Trump campaign.

“[The informant] initiated contact between members of the Trump campaign, and at whose direction?” he asked. “At what point do we, as Americans, say it is not right to spy on a campaign, whether it’s Donald Trump’s or [Sen.] Bernie Sanders’s [I-Vt.]? It’s not right.”

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week.” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) defended the FBI, saying he believes law enforcement was right to investigate “certain individuals” with suspicious histories connected to Russia.