Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigation into possible abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the Justice Department and FBI should be complete in the next couple months, Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday.
During a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the Justice Department’s budget proposal, Barr said “the Office of the Inspector General has a pending investigation of the FISA process in the Russian investigation, and I expect that that will be complete probably in May or June, I am told.”
Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., brought up the question in the context of the completion of Mueller’s investigation. “Now that President Trump has been exonerated of Russia collusion, is the Justice Department investigating how it came to be that your agency used a salacious and unverified dossier as a predicate for a FISA order on a U.S. citizen?” he asked.
Last month, Barr provided a four-page summary of Mueller’s roughly 400-page report to Congress stating that Mueller did not establish that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in 2016. Barr also said Mueller did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump committed obstruction of justice. Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein agreed that Trump did not obstruct justice.
Barr told Aderholt that the FISA abuse investigation should be done within a month or two, “so hopefully we’ll have some answers from Inspector General Horowitz on the issue of FISA warrants.”
Barr continued: “More generally, I am reviewing the conduct of that investigation and am trying to get my arms around all of the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted during the summer of 2016.”
Barr also revealed he was willing to review the criminal referrals being put together by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., saying, “Obviously, if there is a predicate for investigation, it will be conducted.” Nunes says he will be asking the Justice Department to investigate a number of people connected to the Trump-Russia investigation.
In March 2018, Horowitz announced the launch of the FISA abuse investigation after requests from both then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Republican members in Congress. The lawmakers claimed the Justice Department and FBI had abused the FISA process and misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in their investigation and surveillance of Trump and his associates during the campaign, as well as during the Trump administration.
The inspector general’s office said it would “examine the Justice Department’s and the FBI’s compliance with legal requirements, and with applicable DOJ and FBI policies and procedures, in applications filed with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court relating to a certain U.S. person.” That “certain U.S. person” is onetime Trump campaign associate Carter Page.
The Justice Department inspector general also stated it would “review information that was known to the DOJ and the FBI at the time the applications were filed from or about an alleged FBI confidential source. Additionally, the OIG will review the DOJ’s and FBI’s relationship and communications with the alleged source as they relate to the FISC applications.” This “alleged FBI confidential source” is widely believed to be Christopher Steele.
Steele is a British ex-spy whose so-called Trump dossier was used in applications presented before the FISA Court to justify warrants against at least one Trump associate, Page. Steele was paid for his research by Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm that was funded in part by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm.
A newly released transcript of an interview with former FBI General Counsel James Baker revealed he had received Trump-Russia related information given to him from Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann and had passed it along to the FBI.
Republicans have alleged the origins of the dossier, including its Democratic funding and Steele’s anti-Trump bias, were both withheld from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and that the FISA process was therefore abused.
Last month, Horowitz himself confirmed that his office was still investigating possible FISA abuse during comments he made on an Atlantic Council panel discussion in D.C. alongside three other inspectors general.
When asked about the biggest issue his office was dealing with, he replied, “We have a FISA-related review that people might have heard about that the deputy attorney general asked us to take a look at. But I’m not going to dwell on that.”
The moderator, Sarah Lynch of Reuters, emphasized that the watchdog’s FISA investigation was off-limits for any other questions. “I was also asked to just tell everybody, please don’t ask about an ongoing investigation. Don’t ask Michael [Horowitz] about the FISA-Carter Page investigation. He can’t talk about it. As much as we all want to know what the finding will be,” she said.
The most recent high-profile inspector general investigation completed by Horowitz was his probe of the Justice Department’s and FBI’s handling of “Midyear Exam,” the probe into Hillary Clinton’s email practices. That 568-page document released in June 2018 was critical of many steps taken by leaders in the Justice Department and FBI, including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page, all of whom were key players in the Trump-Russia investigation as well.
According to Barr, the FISA abuse report is expected to arrive almost exactly one year later.
