Rep. Devin Nunes expects Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz to report that all four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against one-time Trump campaign aide Carter Page were illegally obtained.
Fox News host Sean Hannity broached the topic with the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee during an interview Tuesday evening, saying, “We keep hearing that the FISA report by the inspector general is going to be devastating. I would assume that he concludes that all four FISA applications and warrants were obtained illegally. Do you see any different conclusion than that?”
“No, I don’t, Sean,” Nunes replied.
Nunes joins fellow Republican Rep. Jim Jordan in making this prediction along with Hannity, who on an almost nightly basis hypes up expectations for the report, harping on how he believes the FBI committed “premeditated fraud” before the FISA Court in using an unverified anti-Trump dossier to obtain the warrant and three renewals from October 2016 to June 2017.
Former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova has gone further, saying he has heard the initial FISA warrant against Page and the three renewals at three-month intervals were illegally obtained. He told the Washington Examiner‘s “Examining Politics” podcast late last month that he got his insider information because the report is “being circulated inside and outside of the department for comment by interested parties.”
Horowitz submitted his FISA application report to Attorney General William Barr for a classification review on Friday. Lawmakers expect to receive the report, likely with redactions, and release it to the public in the coming weeks.
Although he is unaware of how many pages the report will be, Nunes said, “I imagine it will be long.”
The congressman, who has been a lead GOP investigator regarding the Justice Department’s and FBI’s behavior in the Trump-Russia investigation, surmised that Horowitz’s work, including the recent report admonishing former FBI Director James Comey for his handling of sensitive memos, is essential to the “evidence gathering” process for U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr tasked with leading a review of the origins of the Russia investigation.
Essential to holding people accountable, Nunes concluded, is for there to be transparency.
“We don’t want to see it all blacked out. We want the American people to see everything,” Nunes said. “In order for that to happen, a lot of the documents that we have been requesting to be declassified have got to be declassified now. I would only add on just one final point on all of this and that is that Durham needs to gather all of the evidence and needs to make sure, whatever he takes, if he’s going to actually do a prosecution of these dirty cops, he needs to have all the evidence. He needs to get it right. Because we want to make sure that justice is definitely served in this case.”
