DeSantis: Second Special Counsel Needed on Hillary, FISA Probes

A second special counsel is needed to investigate how the investigation was conducted into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, to determine if any abuses occurred through the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and to probe the beginnings of the Trump campaign investigation, Rep. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday.

'We need people to be held accountable on how the Hillary e-mail investigation was conducted and we will get a lot of information on that when the Inspector General's report lands, hopefully very soon," the Florida Republican, one of three lawmaker sponsoring a resolution calling for a second counsel, told Fox News' "Fox and Friends."

"We also need to get people to be held accountable for any FISA abuse that occurred, and then how did this investigation in the Trump campaign start and was it on the up and up from the very beginning," said DeSantis. "There's always a lot of questions about that and I don't think that the Justice Department is going to be able to investigate themselves,"

Further, the DOJ has resisted efforts from Congress "for long enough," and that means it's time to call in a special counsel, DeSantis, who is running for governor of Florida, said.

Congressional Republicans plan to introduce a 12-page resolution Tuesday calling for the second special counsel, according to Fox News. The resolution is sponsored by DeSantis and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, two of the founders of the House Freedom Caucus, as well as caucus chair Rep. Mark Meadows.

According to the report, the resolution is expected to say that an additional special counsel will have more autonomy when investigating the issues than would the Justice Department's Inspector General.

"They have no subpoena power, and then obviously they're not a prosecutor, so if they uncover evidence of criminal misconduct, the Inspector General can't prosecute that and it ends up being a lengthy process," said DeSantis.

The lawmaker said the investigations have been going on for months in congress ,and have met with roadblock after roadblock.

"Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows wrote the president a letter, let's declassify the stuff, the American people deserve the truth," said DeSantis. "His action in response to that letter to say, look, we've got to get to Congress this information, so I applaud the president for doing that. I think it's great for transparency and I think [Chief of Staff] John Kelly will be able to get these guys in line."

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