FBI Director Christopher Wray hinted during an appearance on Capitol Hill that U.S. attorney John Durham is scrutinizing British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier as well as looking into former top FBI employees.
During the Wednesday session, Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, asked Wray if the FBI investigated whether Steele’s salacious and unverified dossier, which fueled Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrants against Trump campaign associate Carter Page, contained Russian disinformation.
The FBI director, appearing before the Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee, seemed to dodge the question before strongly suggesting the issue was being handled by the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, who was assisting in the “investigation of the investigators.”
“We hear so much about Russian interference in our election: It happened. We all know it did. We want it to stop,” Jordan said. “But it seems to me that a big part of that Russian election interference was the idea that a document that Russians, information came from Russians that Christopher Steele put together, is scary.”
“I want to make sure we’re not talking past each other unintentionally,” Wray replied. “When it comes to the origins of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, I think the attorney general has said publicly, so I think that’s why I’m on solid ground to say that here, is that one of the things that Mr. Durham is looking very specifically at is the origination of the investigation. And we have been cooperating fully with that investigation, as the attorney general has commented publicly on a number of occasions.”
Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation aimed at Trump campaign members and possible Russian collusion, was launched on July 31, 2016. The FBI’s Trump-Russia team didn’t receive the Steele dossier until weeks later, so it’s notable Wray brought the dossier up in the context of the controversial investigation’s opening.
Earlier in the hearing, Jordan had pushed Wray for answers about the dossier, bringing up Dr. Fiona Hill, the national security council’s former Russia expert who testified during impeachment proceedings that Steele “could have been played by the Russians” and that his dossier “very likely” contained disinformation from the Kremlin.
The U.S. intelligence community concluded in 2017 that Russian military intelligence was responsible for hacking thousands of emails from Democrats and providing those stolen records to WikiLeaks. An investigation by and indictments from special counsel Robert Mueller bolstered this conclusion, though Mueller did not establish a criminal conspiracy between Trump and the Russians.
Republicans asked Wray about discipline for FBI employees involved in the missteps and abuses outlined in Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s bombshell FISA report. The FBI director called the actions in the report “unacceptable” and said every current FBI employee mentioned in the report had been referred to the Office of Professional Responsibility for a disciplinary review.
Wray repeatedly suggested that Durham might take further action against the FBI leadership from the time of the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation in 2016.
“Are all the individuals and agents and supervisors that were involved in all of these abuses … have they resigned or been fired or been removed from their position?” Rep. Greg Steube of Florida asked.
“At the more senior level of the FBI, the people involved I think in every respect I can think of are gone from the FBI,” Wray said. “And of course, there is an ongoing investigation by Mr. Durham, with which we’re actively cooperating and fully cooperating, I might add.”
Former bureau leaders such as FBI Director James Comey, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and FBI special agent Peter Strzok have been fired from the bureau in the past few years.
“You use the word ‘unacceptable’ — I would think you would find a stronger word for that over what has happened by the actions of people who sullied the reputations of every decent person at the FBI,” Rep. Tom McClintock of California said.
“For the current employees, the vast majority of the people involved in the conduct that you’re describing are no longer with the investigation, so they’re not subject to our disciplinary process in the first place,” Wray replied. “But there is, of course, as you know, the ongoing John Durham investigation, which we’ve been cooperating with fully as the attorney general himself has said. So I look forward to hopefully having another hearing with you at some point where we can have a very different conversation about the FBI.”
Attorney General William Barr and Durham broke with Horowitz on whether the bureau’s Trump-Russia investigation was properly predicated.
Horowitz said he “did not find documentary or testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct” from the FBI agents and supervisors involved in the FISA process but “also did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or problems we identified.”
