Trump is 'so proud' of Bill Barr for investigating how 'hoax' Russia probe ...

President Donald Trump insisted on Tuesday that he did not direct Attorney General William Barr to open an investigation into how the Russia probe was started.

'No, I didn't ask him to do that,' Trump told reporters outside the White House before departing for Louisiana Tuesday morning. 'I didn't know it, but I think it's a great thing that he did it.'

'It was the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the people of this country,' Trump said in reference to the Russia investigation. 'And you know what, I am so proud of our attorney general that he is looking into it. I think it's great. I did not know about it, no.'

Barr appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut John Durham to investigate the origins of the Russia probe, it was revealed in several reports Monday.

Durham will examine whether the FBI's methods of collecting intelligence on Trump's 2016 campaign, which ultimately led to the investigation, were legal.

Previously, Durham served as a special prosecutor investigating improper behavior by intelligence officials.

The attorney general signaled during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that he wanted to review the law enforcement agency's surveillance of the Trump campaign. He said 'spying did occur,' but clarified that it was not necessarily illegal spying.

Trump and Republicans assert that the FBI used ‘illegal’ and irregular methods to obtain the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant, which allowed the agency to spy on Trump’s campaign adviser Carter Page.

A former lawyer at the FBI admitted that the agency relied heavily on the Steele Dossier, a document authored by former British spy Christopher Steele that Russians allegedly used to blackmail Trump,

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