White House still concerned after lawmaker backs FBI

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - The White House insisted Wednesday it is still concerned about the FBI's use of an undercover informant in the Russian probe after a senior Republican congressman backed the bureau's tactics.

Representative Trey Gowdy was one of a select few lawmakers allowed into a briefing on highly classified Justice Department information pertaining to the FBI's use of a confidential informant to gain information from Donald Trump campaign associates.

"I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got," Gowdy, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox News Tuesday, days after the briefing.

Trump has maintained his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, imbedded a "spy" into his campaign without publicly presenting evidence, and the White House maintained Wednesday Trump "feels that there was cause for concern, and it should be looked at".

Trump and his administration have been focused on discrediting a special counsel probe into Russia and the Trump campaign that is being led by Robert Mueller.

The American president claimed Tuesday, again without evidence, that the special counsel investigation would seek to interfere in this year's midterm elections.

It is unclear what, if any, information Trump is basing his claim on, but it fits into his and his administration's efforts to discredit Mueller's probe, which the president has consistently derided as a "witch hunt".

Trump continued to deny any collusion between his campaign and the Russian effort U.S. intelligence officials have called a multi-faceted effort to bolster Trump and undercut his Democratic challenger ahead of the November 2016 election.

"The 13 Angry Democrats (plus people who worked 8 years for Obama) working on the rigged Russia Witch Hunt, will be MEDDLING with the mid-term elections, especially now that Republicans (stay tough!) are taking the lead in Polls. There was no Collusion, except by the Democrats!" he wrote on Twitter.

Speaking to CNN Sunday, Rudy Giuliani, the public face of Trump's legal team dealing with the Mueller investigation, acknowledged that part of their effort to combat the special counsel probe is to discredit it in the court of public opinion while claiming that the basis on which Mueller was appointed is "illegitimate".

"They're giving us the material to do it. Of course, we have to do it in defending the president. To a large extent, remember Dana, what we're doing here, it is the public opinion, because eventually the decision here is going to be impeach or not impeach," Giuliani told CNN's Dana Bash.