This was sort of a gratuitous offering from Mr. Horowitz, as he was not directly charged with unearthing political bias; but his “finding” has given the Obama-era officials the opportunity to claim their motives were pure, and has given the Democrats in Congress something to grasp onto to show that the affair was completely justified and above board.
But, whether there was “political bias” or not, or whether it was found or not, is a mere footnote to the main thrust of the Horowitz investigation, which shows how dishonest, unfair, corrupt, incompetent, unjustified and unnecessary was the investigation into the Trump campaign.
Also, why were there no “defensive briefings” of the Trump campaign; that is, why wasn’t the campaign informed that some of the people involved might be “foreign agents” so that the campaign could separate them? This is the standard practice, but it did not take place. Why? Probably, whether out of “political bias” or not, the Obama team wanted to damage the Trump campaign as much as it could, as was worried less about foreign influence than it was in harming the campaign. And let us not forget that the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign had bought and paid for the fictitious Steele Dossier, and had made liberal use of foreign sources to produce and disseminate it. That means that, yes, the FBI was not at all concerned that the Clinton Campaign was paying for and spreading false tales about the Trump campaign, but instead was concerned that the Trump campaign was potentially committing some wrong-doing. Well, it turns out there was a briefing that the FBI claimed was “defensive,” but it was not, but instead was used as a “surreptitious opportunity” to investigate Gen. Michael Flynn.
Well, back to the Horowitz report. Ms. Strassel and Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist have gone through the Horowitz report line by line, and they show that the Horowitz report doesn’t say many positive things about the investigation into the Trump campaign.
Ms. Strassel says that the report does find that the FBI “hit the threshold” for opening an investigation, but quickly adds that it was a “low threshold.”
The Horowitz report confirms every one of the major points made in the Nunes Memo, issued in February 2018 by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes. This includes the fact that the Steele Dossier was “an essential part” of the applications and that the FBI did not disclose exculpatory information to the FISA court in obtaining its warrants. Adam Schiff, in his own February 2018 memo, claimed the FBI and Department of Justice did not abuse the FISA process, did not omit material information, and that the Dossier was not central to the investigation. Mr. Horowitz’s report devastates all three of these contentions made by Cong. Schiff.
The report goes on to say that the FBI confirmed almost nothing in the Steele Dossier, other than “publicly available times, places and title names.” None of the explosive charges therein were confirmed, and in fact, were discredited.
Let’s not forget that the Inspector General’s report found 17 separate errors in the FBI submissions to the FISA court. These include overstating Mr. Steele’s credentials, whitewashing his credibility, and failure to provide exculpatory evidence. And, surprise, surprise, every one of those 17 mistakes tacked in the same direction – all were negative toward the Trump campaign, and none were in its favor.
The report found that the FBI had tapes of Carter Page and George Papadopoulos making statements that were inconsistent with the FBI collusion theories. These were not provided to the FISA court; nor did the FBI report major, serious problems about Mr. Steele from those who knew him personally.
Here’s an especially outrageous one: not only did the FBI not tell the FISA court that Carter Page was an “operational contact” for the CIA from the mid 2000’s to 2013, it instead used the Russian contacts he made in that role as evidence against him “with no exculpatory detail.”
Furthermore, once the FBI learned the truth about the Steele Dossier and these other items, they “failed to present any of those issues to the Department of Justice.”
The IG report found “numerous instances in which factual representations in the FISA applications were inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation.” Mr. Horowitz also expressed concerns about the way the investigation was handled “given constitutionally protected activity during a presidential campaign” and also “about intrusive investigative techniques that could impact constitutionally protected activity.” Ms. Hemingway points out that the Lisa Page/Peter Strzok texts “were not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously, imply a willingness to take official action to impact Trump’s electoral prospects.” Some more: the operation “did not generate information tending to support the allegation that Page and Papadopoulos were, wittingly or unwittingly, providing assistance to Russia.” “some information the FBI had was inconsistent with, or undercut, the allegations contained in the FISA applications to support probable cause, and, in some instances, resulted in inaccurate information being included in the applications.” And finally, the Inspector-General’s report says, “We did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or problems we identified.”
When the first word of the report came out, prior to Mr. Horowitz’s testimony, former FBI Director James Comey claimed it “vindicated him.” When asked about that, Mr. Horowitz replied, “I think the activities we found here don’t vindicate anybody who touched this.”
There isn’t much else to say, except that if a Republican administration had done to a Democrat’s campaign what the Obama Administration did to the Trump campaign, there wouldn’t be enough jail cells in America to hold them all.
And before we go any farther, we will repeat an observation that we have made several times over the past couple of years: when an investigation into the Trump campaign was first broached, why were there no voices in the FBI or Justice or the Obama Administration who cautioned against the dangers of an election-year investigation into the opposition political campaign? Why did no one say that “we should proceed on this very slowly” or that “we should make absolutely sure that we are acting on accurate information?” Actually, there may have been one. Stuart Evans, a lawyer in the Justice Department, “expressed concerns that the Steele Dossier was funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.” His concerns apparently were ignored.
Also, why were there no “defensive briefings” of the Trump campaign; that is, why wasn’t the campaign informed that some of the people involved might be “foreign agents” so that the campaign could separate them? This is the standard practice, but it did not take place. Why? Probably, whether out of “political bias” or not, the Obama team wanted to damage the Trump campaign as much as it could, as was worried less about foreign influence than it was in harming the campaign. And let us not forget that the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign had bought and paid for the fictitious Steele Dossier, and had made liberal use of foreign sources to produce and disseminate it. That means that, yes, the FBI was not at all concerned that the Clinton Campaign was paying for and spreading false tales about the Trump campaign, but instead was concerned that the Trump campaign was potentially committing some wrong-doing. Well, it turns out there was a briefing that the FBI claimed was “defensive,” but it was not, but instead was used as a “surreptitious opportunity” to investigate Gen. Michael Flynn.
Well, back to the Horowitz report. Ms. Strassel and Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist have gone through the Horowitz report line by line, and they show that the Horowitz report doesn’t say many positive things about the investigation into the Trump campaign.
Ms. Strassel says that the report does find that the FBI “hit the threshold” for opening an investigation, but quickly adds that it was a “low threshold.”
The Horowitz report confirms every one of the major points made in the Nunes Memo, issued in February 2018 by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes. This includes the fact that the Steele Dossier was “an essential part” of the applications and that the FBI did not disclose exculpatory information to the FISA court in obtaining its warrants. Adam Schiff, in his own February 2018 memo, claimed the FBI and Department of Justice did not abuse the FISA process, did not omit material information, and that the Dossier was not central to the investigation. Mr. Horowitz’s report devastates all three of these contentions made by Cong. Schiff.
The report goes on to say that the FBI confirmed almost nothing in the Steele Dossier, other than “publicly available times, places and title names.” None of the explosive charges therein were confirmed, and in fact, were discredited.
Let’s not forget that the Inspector General’s report found 17 separate errors in the FBI submissions to the FISA court. These include overstating Mr. Steele’s credentials, whitewashing his credibility, and failure to provide exculpatory evidence. And, surprise, surprise, every one of those 17 mistakes tacked in the same direction – all were negative toward the Trump campaign, and none were in its favor.
The report found that the FBI had tapes of Carter Page and George Papadopoulos making statements that were inconsistent with the FBI collusion theories. These were not provided to the FISA court; nor did the FBI report major, serious problems about Mr. Steele from those who knew him personally.
Here’s an especially outrageous one: not only did the FBI not tell the FISA court that Carter Page was an “operational contact” for the CIA from the mid 2000’s to 2013, it instead used the Russian contacts he made in that role as evidence against him “with no exculpatory detail.”
Furthermore, once the FBI learned the truth about the Steele Dossier and these other items, they “failed to present any of those issues to the Department of Justice.”
The IG report found “numerous instances in which factual representations in the FISA applications were inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation.” Mr. Horowitz also expressed concerns about the way the investigation was handled “given constitutionally protected activity during a presidential campaign” and also “about intrusive investigative techniques that could impact constitutionally protected activity.” Ms. Hemingway points out that the Lisa Page/Peter Strzok texts “were not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously, imply a willingness to take official action to impact Trump’s electoral prospects.” Some more: the operation “did not generate information tending to support the allegation that Page and Papadopoulos were, wittingly or unwittingly, providing assistance to Russia.” “some information the FBI had was inconsistent with, or undercut, the allegations contained in the FISA applications to support probable cause, and, in some instances, resulted in inaccurate information being included in the applications.” And finally, the Inspector-General’s report says, “We did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or problems we identified.”
When the first word of the report came out, prior to Mr. Horowitz’s testimony, former FBI Director James Comey claimed it “vindicated him.” When asked about that, Mr. Horowitz replied, “I think the activities we found here don’t vindicate anybody who touched this.”
There isn’t much else to say, except that if a Republican administration had done to a Democrat’s campaign what the Obama Administration did to the Trump campaign, there wouldn’t be enough jail cells in America to hold them all.