FBI/PAUL RYAN/RUSSIA/SPYGATE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) sided with House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy in disputing President Donald Trump’s claims that ‘spies’ infiltrated his 2016 presidential campaign. Speaking with reporters, Mr. Ryan on Wednesday [6-6-18] said he had seen no evidence to contradict the assessment last week from Mr. Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican, that the Federal Bureau of Investigation acted appropriately when it sent an informant to meet with two Trump campaign aides during the run-up to the 2016 election. Mr. Gowdy said May 30 that the FBI was acting on its mission to run to ground suspicions of Russian interference in the election, rather than trying to keep Mr. Trump from winning, as he had claimed. Mr. Trump and some of his Republican allies in Congress have been demanding information and documents about the role of an American academic who talked to the campaign aides in 2016 at investigators’ behest. Mr. Trump has depicted the informant as a ‘spy’ and said the episode was a political scandal worse than Watergate. The allegation set the president on a collision course with the Justice Department, which has provided the lawmakers with only some of the information they have requested, citing concerns that other information would jeopardize lives and hurt investigations.”
-Sadie Gurman, “Paul Ryan, Like Trey Gowdy, Says FBI’s Trump Campaign Probe Was Appropriate,” The Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2018 1:05 pm