Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz informed Congress on Thursday that the Justice Department and the FBI’s classification review of the report on alleged Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuses is “nearing completion.”
A letter sent to House and Senate leaders said the draft report is “lengthy” and “concerns sensitive national security and law enforcement matters.”
After providing the report to the DOJ and the FBI more than a month ago for classification determination and marking, Horowitz said the process is “ongoing” and “consistent with our usual practice when an OIG report involves classified information.” The inspector general said he expects the final report to “be released publicly with few redactions” and does not “anticipate a need to prepare and issue separate classified and public versions of the report.”
Horowitz announced the completion of his year-and-a-half investigation on Sept. 13. In his letter to Congress at the time, Horowitz said his team “reviewed over one million records and conducted over 100 interviews.” He also offered some insight into why his inquiry took longer than expected, noting that several witnesses “only recently agreed to be interviewed.”
Over the past two weeks, allies of President Trump expressed vexation at conflicting signals surrounding the classification review, as it increasingly appeared that an expected October release window may extend into November.
Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, a former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, tweeted this week about how “deep state” forces may be trying to “deep-six” the report.
There has been some concern that current and former officials are jockeying to redact as much of the report as possible. Former Republican Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, now a Fox News contributor, said last week that “evidently, there’s an intra-agency debate … about the classification issues” and that the report could be 10%-20% redacted when it is released.
Horowitz disputed there being a tumultuous debate over redactions, writing in his letter Thursday that his team is “working through these issues constructively with both the Department and the FBI.” He noted that his “goal” is to “make as much of our report public as possible.”
Republicans are eager for the report’s release, as they believe it will show top Justice Department and FBI officials improperly targeted the Trump team by misleading the FISA court in using an unverified dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele to obtain warrants to electronically monitor onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Some have even predicted that the four FISA warrants against Page were illegally obtained and have demanded accountability.
Democrats have dismissed allegations of rampant FISA-related wrongdoing.
