Lawmaker Interviews

WATCH: FBI investigation ‘not’ a witch hunt, GOP rep says

A handful of Republicans on Thursday disputed President Trump’s classification of the FBI investigation into his campaign’s alleged ties to Russia as a “witch hunt.”

When asked if he considered the probe, now being led by special counsel Robert Mueller, a “witch hunt,” Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) had a simple answer.

“No, not at all,” he told The Hill’s Molly K. Hooper Thursday afternoon.

{mosads}“In fact, I think it’s welcomed news for the administration as well as Republicans on the Hill, because with the credibility that Director Mueller brings to this position as the special counsel and the integrity he brings to that process, whatever the facts are he’s going to get to the facts,” the freshman lawmaker said.

Reacting to the president’s Thursday morning tweets, Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) joked, “I wish the president would stop tweeting, and that he would listen to the birds, maybe, but not create the sound himself.”

Jones agreed with Banks’s take on the investigation into Russian meddling in the U.S. election and possible ties to the Trump administration.

Asked if he thinks the administration will comply with investigators, Jones said he remembers “vividly [that] if an administration does not try to be helpful with an investigation by special prosecutors, it can lead to trouble.”

To hear the lawmakers in their own words, watch the video above.