Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., wants the Justice Department and the agency’s inspector general to examine whether the FBI and the Justice Department “potentially broke from established protocol to further their investigation of the Trump campaign.”
In a letter sent to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Inspector General Michael Horowitz, Meadows says that a recent transcribed interview with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr “flagged” situations where the agencies may have violated protocol. The letter urges Horowitz and U.S. attorney John Huber to examine Ohr’s “role as a conduit” between the FBI and Trump-Russia dossier author and former British spy Christopher Steele.
Steele put together the dossier after being commissioned by Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm that employed Ohr’s wife, Nellie. That research was paid for, in part, by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Horowitz and Huber are conducting separate investigations into alleged government surveillance abuse of the Trump campaign. In his letter, Meadows urges both men to “include Mr. Ohr’s involvement in these events in their parallel investigations.”
The letter comes following Ohr’s closed-door testimony on Capitol Hill last week. Republicans pressed him on his interactions with the FBI, with whom he shared information he learned from Steele, including the dossier, and research conducted by his wife. Ohr reportedly bypassed his superiors at the DOJ to make contact with the FBI.
[Trump: ‘How the hell is Bruce Ohr still employed?’]
Meadows said Ohr told lawmakers on the Judiciary and Oversight committees that his own notes taken during meetings with Steele noted his “animus” toward Trump, then a candidate. The letter also says Ohr disclosed that he recorded how his wife’s position with Fusion GPS could be a “potential conflict of interest” in August 2016.
According to Meadows, Ohr said these two matters were not mentioned in surveillance warrant applications used to spy on onetime Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Those Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act filings depended, in part, on the dossier, which contains salacious and unverified claims about Trump’s ties to Russia.
Meadows stressed that these omissions, and the “FBI and DOJ’s failure to corroborate” on the contents of the dossier, was problematic.
Meadows concluded his letter by urging Horowitz and Huber to look at Ohr’s involement in their respective probes over concerns about a failure to adhere to protocol.
Ohr was demoted from his post as associate deputy attorney general after it came to light he met with Steele and Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson. Ohr remains at the DOJ, retaining his position as the Organized Crime Task Force director.
