BREAKING: Horowitz Finds FBI Showed ‘No Political Bias’ in Opening Trump-Russia Investigation
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released on Monday his report on the origins of the FBI probe into President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, and whether it coordinated with Russian interference in the election. Horowitz reportedly found “no political bias” in the probe, but “serious performance failures.”
Portions of Horowitz’s report were leaked to journalists in recent weeks, suggesting the IG would fault the FBI for mistakes and “unprofessional” actions that occurred during the investigation. Horowitz also found, however, that there were legitimate grounds for starting the investigation, that the FBI didn’t improperly spy upon the president’s campaign, and that it wasn’t tainted by the political bias of individuals involved in the probe.
You can read the report for yourself here.
The Washington Post obtained a copy of the report, in which Horowitz cites “significant inaccuracies and omissions” in the FBI’s handling of applications to secretly surveil a former Trump campaign adviser.
From WaPo:
“We do not speculate whether the correction of any particular misstatement or omissions, or some combination thereof, would have resulted in a different outcome,” the report asserts. “Nevertheless, the department’s decision makers and the court should have been given complete and accurate information so that they could meaningfully evaluate probable cause before authorizing the surveillance of a US person associated with a presidential campaign.”
This portion about the FBI’s mistakes seems connected to the FISA application for investigating Carter Page. Horowitz found that the application had information from the infamous Christopher Steele dossier, and the warrant generated from that application was incomplete and unsupported.
The report also said Horowitz did not find “documentary or testimonial evidence” that improper motivations influenced the decisions to open investigations of George Papadopoulos, Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort. Horowitz did say though that there were protocol violations and policy standards that weren’t met during these investigations.
The report also explored whether political bias was at the root of opening the Crossfire Hurricane counter-intelligence investigation, which eventually led to the Robert Mueller investigation.
Executive Summary Page 3 of the report says that even though Lisa Page and Peter Strzok were both involved with the start of the investigation, they were not in positions to influence it. It goes on to say the probe opened “in compliance with Department and FBI policies, and we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced” the decision to investigate.
Horowitz’s findings come after Attorney General William Barr was said to have objected to his determination about the FBI investigation, but John Durham, who was selected by the attorney general to conduct his own review of the probe, reportedly found no evidence to contradict Horowitz.
This story is developing and we shall update accordingly.
[Photo by Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images]
