Bill Barr vows to uncover 'exactly what happened' with Russia probe, says explanations have been 'inadequate'

Attorney General Bill Barr, in an exclusive interview with Fox News, said the country must know “exactly what happened” with counterintelligence activities conducted during the 2016 election -- and he is determined to get to the bottom of the case.

In his first interview since becoming attorney general, Barr spoke to “America’s Newsroom” host Bill Hemmer during a visit to El Salvador for meetings with law enforcement officials. In pointed terms, he fired back at Democrats who have castigated him over his handling of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report -- calling Speaker Nancy Pelosi's charge that he lied to Congress "laughable" and dismissing an attempt to hold him in contempt of Congress.

"That's part of the usual ... political circus that's being played out. It doesn't surprise me," he said.

And the nation's top law enforcement official provided new details about the recently announced probe into the origins of the Russia investigation, defending his decision to pursue it and stressing that many of the answers he's gotten so far have been "inadequate."

“The first step is to find out exactly what happened, and we're trying to get our arms around that, getting all the relevant information from the various agencies and starting to talk to some of the people that have information,” Barr told Hemmer.

While the decision to look back at the origins of the investigation has prompted harsh criticism from Democrats who previously have accused him of acting as the president's lawyer, Barr argued there's much yet to learn.

“I think there's a misconception out there that we know a lot about what happened,” he said.

“The fact of the matter is Bob Mueller did not look at the government's activities. He was looking at whether or not the Trump campaign had conspired with the Russians. But he was not going back and looking at the counterintelligence program. And we have a number of investigations underway that touch upon it -- the main one being the office of inspector general that's looking at the FISA warrants.”