Attorney General William Barr told Congress he was “working very closely” with the Justice Department’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz as they both conduct investigations into the investigators who ran the Trump-Russia investigation at the DOJ and FBI.
Horowitz has been looking into possible Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse for more than a year. Barr told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday that he was looking into the origins of the investigation into Trump, any criminal leaks from the FBI or DOJ to the media, the possibility the “Steele dossier” — compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele — was Russian disinformation, and more.
Barr said: “I talked to Mike Horowitz a few weeks ago about it. It’s focused on the FISA, basis for the FISA and handling of the FISA applications. But by necessity, it looks back a little earlier than that. The people helping me with my review will be working very closely with Mr. Horowitz.”
He suggested the investigation into Trump may be broader than previously thought: “Many people seem to assume that the only intelligence collection that occurred was a single confidential informant and a FISA warrant. I would like to find out whether that is, in fact, true. It strikes me as a fairly anemic effort if that was the counterintelligence effort to stop the threat as it is being represented.
“As I’ve said before, the extent there was any overreach I believe it was a few people in the upper echelons of the bureau and perhaps the department. But those people are no longer there, and I’m working closely with [FBI Director] Chris Wray, who I think has done a superb job at the bureau, and we’re working together on trying to reconstruct exactly what went down.”
Earlier in the hearing, Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked, “Do you share my concerns about the FISA process?”
Barr replied simply: “Yes.”
The Steele dossier was used in applications to the FISA Court to justify warrants against at least one Trump associate, Carter 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.
Steele has come under increased scrutiny, with Barr saying Wednesday the DOJ is now investigating whether his dossier was based in part upon Russian disinformation.
Last year, Horowitz announced the launch of the FISA abuse investigation after requests from both then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Republican members of 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.
Horowitz said he 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 [Page].”
He stated that he 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 Steele.
Barr, who stood by his use of the word “spying” in front of the Senate Wednesday, said the DOJ inspector general report could be in by the end of June.