The Justice Department watchdog is expected to criticize DOJ official Bruce Ohr for meeting with Trump dossier author Christopher Steele after the FBI cut the former MI6 agent off as a source.
The FBI severed ties with Steele in the fall of 2016 because of improper leaks to the media, but Ohr acted as an unofficial conduit between Steele and the bureau during the Trump-Russia investigation up until at least November 2017.
A draft of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s forthcoming report shows Horowitz will condemn Ohr for not informing his superiors of his interactions with Steele, according to the New York Times.
Ohr was the fourth-ranking official at the DOJ until he was demoted after it came to light that he met with Steele and Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which commissioned Steele’s work. Ohr’s wife Nellie Ohr also worked for Fusion GPS in 2016.
Documents show he was removed from his position as associate deputy attorney general in December 2017. In January 2018, he lost his position as director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force and shifted to counselor for international affairs in the Criminal Division.
Ohr testified last year to a joint task force of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees looking into alleged bias by the FBI and the DOJ about how he unilaterally decided not to inform his direct superior, Sally Yates, of the unofficial back channel.
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According to a transcript released in March, Ohr said it was a “regular practice” for him to make direct contact with the FBI with information about organized crime over the years and, while he wasn’t serving as an investigator or prosecutor for an FBI case, he felt that providing the bureau “source lead information” from Steele was “overall part of my job.” While the GOP investigators hounded Bruce Ohr for not notifying Yates, the Democratic side drove home the point that Ohr didn’t violate any DOJ policy.
Steele’s research, which contained unverified allegations about President Trump’s ties to Russia, was used by the FBI to obtain warrants to wiretap former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Republicans have alleged the FBI and the Justice Department misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court about the dossier’s Democratic benefactors, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and that Steele’s anti-Trump bias was left out of the FISA applications. Democrats argue the Justice Department and the FBI met the rigor, transparency, and evidentiary basis for probable cause.
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Horowitz recently wrapped up a year-and-a-half investigation examining the DOJ’s and the FBI’s compliance with legal requirements and policies in applications filed to the FISA Court during the Trump-Russia investigation.
According to leaks about the draft report, Horowitz is expected to condemn the FBI for failing to inform the judges on the FISA Court of potential problems with the dossier. The inspector general is also said to have found no evidence of political bias by top officials tainting the Russia investigation. His investigators did find that an FBI lawyer, identified as Kevin Clinesmith, allegedly altered a document related to the surveillance of Page but determined Clinesmith’s actions did not taint the overall validity of a renewal application.
His final report is slated to be released on Dec. 9, and two days later Horowitz is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his investigation.
