Fox News host Sean Hannity says he is hearing that the Justice Department inspector general’s investigation into alleged Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse is “done and it’s devastating.”
He made the assertion during his evening program on Wednesday and asked Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., if he also had heard any word on the investigation.
Graham, whose Judiciary Committee had been conducting his own FISA abuse inquiry, said he could not verify if Inspector General Michael Horowitz is done, but added that he expects the eventual report to be upsetting to anyone who cares about the rule of law.
Hannity first brought up the prospect of Horowitz’s investigation being complete earlier in the show, speaking with Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett and former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who is now a Fox News contributor.
“I have sources telling me that Horowitz perhaps is even finished with his report and certainly the attorney general has been briefed on what is coming,” Hannity said. He also referred to former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova saying Horowitz determined that the three FISA extensions against onetime Trump campaign aide Carter Page were illegally obtained and was on the brink of finding the first FISA was completely illegal.
The completion of Horowitz’s investigation would be news. Attorney General William Barr recently predicted that it would be complete in either late May or June, but there has been no official word of its progress since.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.
Horowitz announced his investigation in March 2018 in a statement that said his office was examining the Justice Department’s and FBI’s compliance with legal requirements as well as policies and procedures in applications filed with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court related to Page as part of a larger counterintelligence probe into President Trump’s campaign. Horowitz also said 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 British ex-spy Christopher Steele, who authored the unverified dossier on Trump’s ties to Russia that was used by the FBI in the Page warrant applications.
Horowitz can recommend that people be prosecuted. Jarrett noted that U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr has tasked with reviewing the origins of the Russia investigation, could then “subpoena people to haul them in front of a grand jury. I suspect there is a grand jury and they’re well on their way to potential criminal indictments.”
Jarrett said the people “likely” in legal jeopardy are former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI General Counsel James Baker, former FBI special agent Peter Strzok, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, “maybe” former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and “certainly” Steele and Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson.
