Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told Breitbart News exclusively on Wednesday that President Donald Trump told senators at the weekly GOP luncheon that he backs his call for an investigation into the origins of the Russia scandal "hoax" that Trump has now been cleared of by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

"The president was at lunch today and he voiced his support for investigating the people who concocted this hoax," Paul told Breitbart News.

"He didn't use the word hoax, those are my words, but I think we should get to the bottom of this and he believes we should get to the bottom of this because this should never happen to another president. He feels that it's damaging to the country, damaging to the ability to lead the country, that we basically—somebody within the Obama administration, within the DOJ and the FBI, basically concocted an investigation, trumped it up to be something that it wasn't and then we've gone through two years of the country being stalled because of this fake investigation."