Conservative lawmakers keep up calls for second special counsel

Several conservative GOP lawmakers on Thursday reaffirmed their demand for a second special counsel to investigate alleged surveillance abuses at the Justice Department.

Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) spoke to the need for a second special counsel during a joint appearance with Fox News host Laura Ingraham after Attorney General Jeff Sessions resisted such demands earlier in the day.

During the interview, Jordan accused top FBI officials of omitting facts when approaching a secretive court under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to get a surveillance warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

“Laura, it’s supposed to [be] the truth, the whole truth, not part of it, not [with] redactions, and when you go to the court, you gotta give them the whole truth. They did not do that at the FISA court,” Jordan said.

“And it was those people – two of them have been fired, three of them have been demoted,” he said. “And we don’t think that’s extraordinary circumstances warranting a second special counsel?”

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Meadows, the chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, and Jordan, the group’s previous chair, have been calling for another special counsel for months alongside more than a dozen other GOP lawmakers.

Republicans have seized on revelations that the FBI did not save five months’ worth of text messages between two agents accused of pro-Clinton and anti-Trump bias during the 2016 presidential race.

Sessions announced earlier Thursday that he would not appoint a second special counsel to investigate alleged FISA abuses but would instead appoint a federal prosecutor from Utah to lead an investigation inside the Justice Department.

Reps. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), the chairmen of the House Oversight and Government Reform and Judiciary committees, respectively, called the move “a step in the right direction” while saying they still believed a special counsel was necessary.

“While we continue to believe the appointment of a second Special Counsel is necessary, this is a step in the right direction. We expect that U.S. Attorney Huber, given his reputation, will conduct an independent and thorough investigation,” the two chairmen said in a statement.

“Such an investigation is critical to restoring the reputation of both the Bureau and DOJ in the eyes of the American people,” they added.

The push to name a second special counsel, which President Trump has also pressed to see, includes top House Republicans such as Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.).

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have yet to endorse the idea of appointing another special counsel, which some Republicans fear could be used to muddy special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Trump campaign associates’ ties to Russia and Moscow’s meddling in he 2016 election.