Kimberley Strassel: Barr brings accountability, he was ‘right to call this what it is’

Kimberley Strassel believes Attorney General William Barr brings “accountability” after he testified Wednesday that he thinks "spying did occur" on the Trump campaign in 2016.

In an Op-Ed published Thursday, Strassel, a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, wrote that many former Obama administration and Hillary Clinton campaign officials, as well as members of the media, are "no doubt" stunned and scared "that the Justice Department finally has a leader willing to address the FBI's behavior in 2016.”

“He (Barr) was right to call this what it is. It is spying,” Strassel, who is a Fox News contributor, told “America’s Newsroom” Friday.

She added: “One of the reasons it's appropriate here is because you surveil bad guys, as he said, like organized crime bosses. But this was a party of one persuasion running an administration that was looking at a campaign of the other party. And that definitely merits the word ‘spying’ so that's what was happening here. He says he’s going to look into that. He’s going to see if there was unauthorized surveillance. Meaning, there’s still some things in the FBI’s timeline that do not add up.”

MEDIA TAKE ISSUE WITH AG BARR FOR SAYING 'SPYING DID OCCUR' ON TRUMP CAMPAIGN

Strassel also brought up that Barr will be looking into the role of other intelligence agencies including The Central Intelligence Agency.

“There’s a lot of questions that he seems to, from his testimony, understand all the dots that need to be looked at and connected here,” said Strassel.

Prominent Democrats lined up to hammer Barr for testifying that federal authorities had spied on the Trump campaign in 2016, including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., who said Barr's loyalties were compromised.

"He is acting as an employee of the president," Hoyer said.

DEMS RAGE AGAINST BARR FOR BACKING CLAIMS OF TRUMP CAMPAIGN 'SPYING' BY FBI 

“We have to focus on more than just the end of the Mueller report and more than how all this started. We have to focus on the two years in which opponents of Donald Trump managed to forestall accountability for this,” said Strassel. “Now think about this, you had Jim Comey, who hid his investigation from everybody. He didn't tell the public about it obviously. He also did not tell the courts about it. He did not tell Congress about it, which is a routine thing to do. He did not give a defensive briefing to the Trump campaign. And why? Because everyone was banking that Hillary Clinton would win and that no one would ever know what the FBI did here.”

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She added: “When Donald Trump actually did win, then you had a whole new set of circumstances. Democrats leaked all of this information, they managed to get a special counsel, thereby forestalling any questions about how this all began. They managed to force Jeff Sessions to recuse himself so that no outsider could take a look at what the DOJ (U.S. Department of Justice) had done. This has gone on too long. Now there is a person in charge who is going to look and that's what’s causing this reaction.”

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