U.S. Attorney John Durham disagreed with the Justice Department inspector general’s determination that the opening of the Trump-Russia investigation was justified.
Durham, who is conducting a separate investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation, said in a rare statement on Monday following the release of Justice Department Inspector General Horowitz’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act report. The Connecticut federal prosecutor said he has “the utmost respect” for Horowitz’s team and the “comprehensive work” they carried out, but stressed that he is privy to information outside of Horowitz’s DOJ purview.
“Our investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department. Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S.,” Durham said. “Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”
Attorney General William Barr echoed Durham’s sentiments on Monday, stating that Horowitz’s report “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.”
[Read: FISA abuse report by DOJ inspector general is released]
The inspector general, who was looking into allegations of FISA abuse to monitor onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, found the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Trump’s team was properly authorized, and no political bias influenced the launch of the investigation but also determined the bureau made “at least 17 significant errors or omissions” in the secret court filings spanning from October 2016 to the summer of 2017.
Separate from Horowitz’s investigation, Trump this May gave Barr full declassification authority to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation itself and to determine whether the investigation was properly predicated. Barr selected Durham to lead that investigation.
Democrats, who are nearing an impeachment vote in the House this week, have raised concerns that Barr is leveraging intelligence-gathering practices to attack Trump’s political rivals.
Barr and Durham have been reaching out to foreign governments, including Australia, Italy, and the United Kingdom during their investigation, and have made multiple overseas trips to speak with intelligence officials and review evidence as they look into how the Trump-Russia investigation began.
There have been numerous reports that Durham has been seeking answers about the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation by questioning members of the U.S. Intelligence Community and others. For instance, former CIA Director John Brennan said Durham was seeking interviews with himself and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
Barr has long signaled skepticism about whether the Trump-Russia investigation was launched on sound legal footing. It began in late July 2016, after Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos bragged to an Australian diplomat that he heard the Russians had damaging information on Hillary Clinton, Trump’s 2016 rival. The FBI’s counterintelligence investigation, dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane, was later wrapped into special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference. Mueller’s team was unable to establish criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
“I think spying did occur. But the question is whether it was predicated — adequately predicated,” Barr told the Senate in April. “I’m not suggesting it wasn’t adequately predicated, but I need to explore that.”
“I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” Barr said. “And a lot has already been investigated and is being investigated by the Office of Inspector General at the department. But one of the things I want to do is pull together all the information from the various investigations that have gone on, including on the Hill and in the department, and see if there are any remaining questions to be addressed.”
Facing blowback for the use of the word “spying,” including from FBI Director Christopher Wray, Barr refused to back down. In May, he called “spying” a “good English word” and told CBS News some facts he had uncovered “don’t hang together with the official explanations of what happened.”
The FBI’s operational guidelines say a “full investigation” may be opened if there is an “articulable factual basis” of possible criminal activity or a threat to national security, with such an investigation allowing for surveillance, subpoenas, searches and seizures, undercover operations, electronic surveillance, FISA orders, and more. The guidelines further add that “the predication to open a full investigation must be documented in the opening electronic communication.”
FISA documents released in 2018 show DOJ and the FBI made extensive use of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier in 2016 and 2017. The Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee used the Perkins Coie law firm to hire Fusion GPS, which then hired the former MI6 agent, whose Democratic funding, his strong desire for Trump to lose, and possible flaws with his dossier weren’t revealed to the FISA court. The FISA applications targeting Page required the approval of top members of the FBI and the DOJ, and judges on FISA court.
