Washington Free Beacon contributing editor Daniel Halper said Tuesday that it might take years to get answers on whether the FBI or other parts of the Justice Department spied on the Trump campaign.
"These investigations do take a long time," Halper said on Fox News. "I think we might take years to get answers and figure out what is going on."
The New York Times reported last week that the FBI used an informant in 2016 to investigate the Trump campaign for potential ties to Russia.
In fact, FBI agents sent an informant to talk to two campaign advisers only after they received evidence that the pair had suspicious contacts linked to Russia during the campaign. The informant, an American academic who teaches in Britain, made contact late that summer with one campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, according to people familiar with the matter. He also met repeatedly in the ensuing months with the other aide, Carter Page, who was also under FBI scrutiny for his ties to Russia.
President Donald Trump on Sunday ordered the Justice Department to investigate whether the FBI or other agencies within the department surveilled the Trump campaign for political purposes.
"I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes—and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!" Trump tweeted.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has asked the Justice Department's inspector general to expand his review of the FBI's conduct to look into Trump's claims.
"The Department has asked the inspector general to expand the ongoing review of the FISA application process to include determining whether there was any impropriety or political motivation in how the FBI conducted its counterintelligence investigation of persons suspected of involvement with the Russian agents who interfered in the 2016 presidential election," Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement.
Fox News anchor Melissa Francis asked Halper whether this is the best way to investigate the claims.
"It's definitely not the most efficient or the fastest way, but it's perhaps politically the easiest way both for for President Trump and the Justice Department," Halper said. "It's a way of using an existing investigation and just expanding it a little bit perhaps, and thus avoiding a lot of the criticism that has come President Trump's way after these tweets."
Halper added that Inspector General Michael Horowitz is well suited to investigate the claims.
"That is the advantage of Horowitz. He apparently is respected on both sides. I've heard plenty of Republicans praise him; I've heard plenty of Democrats praise him," Halper said. "Meanwhile, President Trump is apparently under investigation for obstruction of justice, and he does appear to be pointing to the Justice Department to do something and to look into it."
"Is it obstruction if he [Trump] wants to know how the investigation started, for what reason, what was the evidence, and was someone sent into his campaign for political reasons?" Francis asked.
"It seems a reasonable question to ask and anybody would want to ask. There is a lot of—I think there has been a lot of reporting on President Trump, obviously, but very few resources by the media into [special counsel] Robert Mueller and the genesis of this investigation," Halper said. "I think you can be weary of President Trump calling for this investigation simply because of the meddling, and yet you can say he has a point."