The FBI was justified in opening its investigation into ties between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia and did not act with political bias, despite “serious performance failures” up the bureau’s chain of command, the Justice Department’s internal watchdog said in a highly anticipated report Monday, The Associated Press reported.
The findings undercut President Donald Trump’s claim that he was the target of a “witch hunt.” However, its nuanced conclusions deny a clear-cut vindication for Trump’s supporters or critics. It rejects theories and criticism spread by Trump and his supporters while also finding errors and misjudgments likely to be exploited by Republican allies as the President faces a probable impeachment vote this month.
Trump, in remarks at the White House shortly after the report’s release, claimed that the report showed “an attempted overthrow and a lot of people were in on it.”
The President has repeatedly said he was more eager for the report of John Durham, the hand-picked prosecutor selected by Attorney General William Barr to conduct a separate review of the Russia probe.
Barr rejected the inspector general’s conclusion that there was sufficient evidence to open the investigation.
“The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken,” Barr said in a statement. His remarks were an unusual twist in that the attorney general typically does not take issue with an internal investigation that clears a Justice Department agency of serious misconduct.
In an interview with The Associated Press, FBI Director Chris Wray said the inspector general found problems that are “unacceptable and unrepresentative of who we are as an institution.”
However, he also noted that political bias did not taint the opening of the investigation, or the steps that followed. He said the FBI is implementing more than 40 corrective actions, AP noted.
Durham, in a brief statement, said he has informed the inspector general that he also doesn’t agree with the conclusion that the inquiry was properly opened, and suggested his own investigation would back up that assertion.
The inspector general identified 17 “significant inaccuracies or omissions” in applications for a warrant from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor the communications of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and subsequent warrant renewals.
The errors, the watchdog said, resulted in “applications that made it appear that the information supporting probable cause was stronger than was actually the case.”
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