The judge who handled a host of cases resulting from special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings said Tuesday the Trump-Russia investigation’s launch was justified.
“There was ample basis for this Justice Department of this administration to authorize and pursue an investigation” into whether any members of the Trump campaign were involved in Russian election interference or whether there was any obstruction of Mueller’s investigation, Judge Amy Berman Jackson said during Tuesday’s sentencing of former Trump campaign deputy Rick Gates.
Jackson waded into the debate over the legitimacy of the DOJ’s investigations into the Trump campaign and Russia, launched as an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 then wrapped into Mueller’s investigation after his appointment in May 2017 in the wake of former FBI director James Comey’s firing.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse last week, drawing a distinction between the inquiry’s launch and the subsequent investigative steps taken during it. The watchdog concluded the Trump-Russia investigation, dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane,” was opened on a sound legal footing and was unable to “find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced” the genesis of that investigation.
But Horowitz also lambasted the DOJ and FBI for 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to secret surveillance court filings targeting Trump campaign associate Carter Page which relied upon allegations contained within British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s salacious and unverified dossier. The inspector general didn’t rule out bias tainting the actual carrying out of the investigation, saying he couldn’t determine whether the missteps were due to “sheer gross incompetence” or just “intentional misconduct.”
Attorney General Willam Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham, who are running their own investigation into the origins and conduct of the Trump-Russia investigation, quibbled with Horowitz’s conclusion that the inquiry was launched properly. Barr said the FBI launched its investigation on “the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken.” And Durham released a rare statement noting he and his investigative team “do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”
Jackson, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2011, made her comments during her sentencing of Gates to 45 days in jail on weekends and three years of probation, praising him for his “extraordinary cooperation” in the DOJ’s successful prosecutions of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and former Trump campaign associate Roger Stone as well as its unsuccessful case against former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig.
“Gates’ information alone warranted — indeed, demanded — further investigation from the standpoint of our national security, the integrity of our elections, and the enforcement of our criminal laws,” Jackson said.
Jackson pointed to Gates’s testimony that Manafort had asked campaign polling data to be shared with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, the light Gates shed about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between a number of Russians and Trump campaign members looking for dirt on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the details he provided about the campaign’s interest in Clinton’s missing government emails as well as in the Democratic emails hacked by the Russians and disseminated by WikiLeaks.
Recently revealed FBI notes also show Gates told the FBI that Manafort suggested that the hacking of the DNC was carried out by Ukraine, not Russia, sometime during the 2016 presidential election. President Trump brought up a version of the debunked CrowdStrike conspiracy theory during his controversial July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president this year.
Mueller concluded Russian military intelligence meddled in the 2016 presidential election in a systematic way through cyberattacks and social media disinformation campaigns but did not establish any criminal conspiracy nor coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Neither Manafort, Stone, Gates, nor any other American was charged with crimes tied to Russian collusion.
Mueller also outlined 10 possible instances of obstruction of justice by Trump but did not reach a final determination. Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded there was insufficient evidence of obstruction.
