Trump Uses Release of Record to Renew His Attack on Russia Investigation

President Donald Trump used the release of an application to conduct surveillance on an adviser during his 2016 campaign to renew his claims of a “rigged” FBI investigation, even as a Republican senator said the request to a foreign intelligence court was legitimate.

In response to public-records lawsuits, the government Saturday released a heavily redacted version of the document that was used to apply for a wiretap on campaign adviser Carter Page. Trump and other Republicans have attacked the FBI and Justice Department for relying partly on a dossier written by former British spy Christopher Steele, partly financed by Democrats, in the application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

“As usual they are ridiculously heavily redacted but confirm with little doubt that the Department of ‘Justice’ and FBI misled the courts,” Trump said in a Twitter post on Sunday. “Witch Hunt Rigged, a Scam!”

In another post, Trump said, “Looking more & more like the Trump Campaign for President was illegally being spied upon (surveillance).”

But Democrats have said other information besides the Steele report was used to obtain renewals of the warrant on Page, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday that the FBI did nothing wrong in seeking the surveillance.

“I have a different view on this issue than the president and the White House,” Rubio of Florida said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “They did not spy on the campaign from anything and everything that I have seen.”