(Bloomberg) --
FBI officials should have re-evaluated whether to continue surveillance on a former
Trump campaign aide in early 2017 when information they gathered cast serious doubt on the legal justification and value of doing so, the Justice Department’s internal watchdog told lawmakers.Inspector General Michael Horowitz reaffirmed findings in his report Monday that the FBI was justified in deciding to open a probe -- dubbed Crossfire
Hurricane -- into whether then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign conspired with
Russia in the 2016 election. But in testimony Wednesday to the
Senate Judiciary Committee, he also said FBI officials misled a secret court in order to continue surveillance of the former aide, Carter Page. “It was misleading to the court,” Horowitz said about repeated warrants sought for Page under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. “I don’t think the Department of Justice fairly treated these FISAs, and he was on the receiving end of them.”Horowitz made it clear, however, that while there were serious problems with continuing the surveillance of Page, the investigation was much broader.The inspector general’s findings have added fresh fuel to a ferocious debate between
Republicans and
Democrats about FBI actions before and after the 2016 election. The renewed fight comes as Democrats move to impeach Trump as soon as this week for allegedly abusing his office and obstructing
Congress in his efforts to get
Ukraine to investigate
Joe Biden and his family. Trump also pressed for an inquiry into an unsubstantiated theory that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the 2016
election and did so to help Democrat Hillary Clinton.Republicans say the findings about the FBI probe presented by Horowitz back assertions that the inquiry was ultimately continued for political reasons by a cabal of anti-Trump agents at the FBI and Justice Department. The president has said the conclusions show he’s right in claiming his campaign was spied on, a message he reinforced on
Twitter during the hearing.Democrats have focused on Horowitz’s determination that a probe was warranted and wasn’t driven by political bias.Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham blasted the FBI over the failures associated with the Page surveillance warrants, accusing bureau officials of carrying out a criminal conspiracy.“What happened here is not a few irregularities,” Graham said. “What happened here is the system failed. People at the highest level of our government took the law into their hands.”“How the hell did this whole thing start?” Graham asked. “What got us here today?”Read More: DOJ Watchdog Confirms Ongoing Probe Into FBI Leaks to GiulianiHorowitz said agents and officials involved in the probe inappropriately shared political opinions on government-issued devices. But he said that was separate from concerns about whether they allowed those personal views to affect their professional decisions. His report found agents expressing pro-Trump sentiments in addition to those belittling then-candidate Trump.Attorney General
William Barr has said he disagrees with key findings by Horowitz, including that the FBI was justified in opening the investigation in July 2016. Barr has commissioned his own investigation into actions by the FBI and other agencies, which is being led by U.S. Attorney John Durham.Horowitz revealed during Wednesday’s hearing that Durham told him last month that the FBI should have opened only a preliminary investigation, not a full investigation. Horowitz downplayed the significance of that decision, saying that every investigative tactic used by the FBI at the start of the probe would have been legal and available regardless of whether it was a full or preliminary one.Wednesday’s testimony was the first public appearance by Horowitz following his report at the conclusion of a nearly two-year investigation his office conducted. He found that the FBI relied on a dossier put together by former
British spy Christopher Steele to obtain the original warrant on Page and three renewals that lasted until September 2017.Not an AgentBut FISA court officials weren’t explicitly informed that Steele’s work was partly funded by the
Democratic National Committee, which had a stake in seeing Trump undermined, or that at least one of Steele’s sources recanted his role in collecting information for the dossier. And they weren’t told that evidence collected after the original FISA warrant suggested that Page wasn’t an agent for Russia.Graham said the report shows the importance of having more checks and balances in the process of getting FISA warrants approved, and he appealed to FBI Director Christopher Wray to address the shortcomings, something Wray vowed to do after the Horowitz report was released.“Director Wray you’ve got a problem,” Graham said.(Updates with Horowitz comments on broader Trump probe starting in fourth paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Strohm in
Washington at cstrohm1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Larry LiebertFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.