https://foxnews.com/politics/horowitz-testifiesJustice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz declared a “failure” by the entire “chain of command” involved in the FBI’s initial Trump-Russia investigation, in blistering testimony Wednesday that called out “basic and fundamental errors” at the bureau while stressing that his newly released report on the probe does not "vindicate" anyone.
The tone of the testimony, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, ran counter to much of the coverage surrounding the report's release that zeroed in on a core finding that investigators found no evidence of political bias and were indeed justified in launching the 2016 probe.
Under questioning, Horowitz said he could not outright determine whether bias was involved in the process of applying for a FISA warrant against former Trump adviser Carter Page.
"Can you say it wasn’t because of political bias?" Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked.
"I do not know," Horowitz answered. He also said he was "not ruling it out," regarding the possibility that bias influenced those decisions.
In the run-up to the report's release, a number of leak-based media reports focused on the no-bias finding, painting the picture of an IG report that largely would go easy on the FBI. But the actual document highlighted numerous errors and missteps in the process, while Horowitz himself was highly critical -- several GOP lawmakers argued Wednesday that the report was in no way an exoneration for the FBI, with Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, calling such claims "crazy."
Horowitz bluntly replied: "I think the activities we found here don’t vindicate anybody who touched this FISA."
Comments
"Nevertheless, we found that members of the Crossfire Hurricane team failed to meet the basic obligation to ensure that the Carter Page FISA applications were scrupulously accurate," Horowitz said Wednesday.
Horowitz stressed that the Steele reporting helped to push the Page FISA application "over the line" in terms of establishing probable cause for a FISA warrant, and noted that Steele's reporting "played a central and essential role in the decision to seek a FISA order."
Horowitz further said that parts of the Page FISA application "relied entirely on information from the Steele reporting to support the allegation that Page was coordinating with the Russian government on 2016 U.S. presidential election activities."
Information that they knew was complete fucking bullshit. But hey, where did he say they "lied" to the court?
- James Comey, 12/7/18