His report on fisa abuse allegations related to the 2016 trump election. The hearing now in its entirety. [chatter] [chatter] very much. U of mr. Horowitz, thank you. I appreciate what you have done. The new have your team with you . Would it be ok if they raised their hands . If they are ok with it, him ok with it. Thank you all. Have labored hard and your work product is impressive. I just want to thank you all for what you have done for the country. Mr. Horowitz, i am dying to hear from you. I will take a little bit longer to try to lay out what i think is before us as a nation to crossfire hurricane was probably given to ane ever investigation in the history of investigations, because that is what wound up with, crossfire hurricane. There has been a lot of media reports about your report before it was issued. And i remember reading all these headlines lawful investigation with a few irregularities. Peopleing ok, lowlevel kind of got off track. If that is what you get out of this report, you clearly didnt read it. If that is your take away, that this thing was lawfully predicated and thats the main , you missed the entire report. How do you get a headline like that . Thats what you wanted to be. You wanted to be that and nothing more. I can assure you, if this had been a democratic president going to President Trump going through what President Trump had gone through, that would not be the headline, the headline would be the f. B. I. Takes law in own hands, biased ages cut corners, like to court, ignore exoneration. So the first thing i want you to knows how the cake is baked here. My goal is to make sure that people, when this is over, whether you like trump, hate trump, dont care about trump, you look at this as more than a few irregularities. Because if this becomes a few irregularities in america, then god help us all. The people in charge of the investigation were had kept by mr. Mccabe, who is now a cnn analyst. The number two guy. The first question i will ask in a bit is, is this the best of the best . Are these people normal representatives of the department of justice and the f. B. I. . I hope you will say no, because i believe it to be, no. If i believed otherwise, i would be incredibly depressed. So, ladies and gentlemen, i will assume something for the sake of argument, there was a lawful predicate to open up a counterintelligence investigation. The standard to open one up is about like that. I also want you to know that a counterintelligence investigation is not a criminal investigation. They are not trying to solve a crime, they are trying to stop foreign powers from interfering in america. That a counterintelligence investigation is designed to protect americans from foreign influence. I want the American People to know there was an effort to affect Hillary Clintons campaign by foreign actors. The f. B. I. Picked up the effort, briefed her about it and they were able to stop it. We will be receiving a defensive briefing tomorrow as a committee. From the f. B. I. , to tell us all about what we should be watching may he somere specific threats against us, i dont know, but i know they will tof us to brief us protect us, not to surveillance. Here is what i want every american to know, from the time they opened up crossfire hurricane, to this debacle was over, they never made any effort to brief donald trump about suspected problems with in his campaign. They had one briefing, talking about, you know, the russians are out there, you better be ware. Nothing about carter page, nothing about George Papadopoulos, nothing about the other people that they thought might be working with the russians. Why did they not tell him that . I hope you can give us an answer. Bottom line, ladies and gentlemen, a counterintelligence ,nvestigation is a good thing until it becomes a bad thing. Because it doesnt take much to open one. And the worst thing can happen, is for people to open one up was real purpose is not to protect an american come but to surveilled them an american but to surveil them. A longtime employee was suspected of having ties to refer government. They informed her and they took action. How would it for so much of coming to our campaign is a volunteer, you just appreciate any help you can get, how easy would it be for all of us to get caught up in this scenario . I hope all of us would appreciate, if you really believe there is somebody in my Campaign Working with a foreign power, please tell me, so i can do something about it. Why didnt they tell trump . We will figure that out later. But i think it is a question that needs to be asked. So, for a moment, lets assume there was a lawful predicate to open up a counterintelligence investigation. What has been described as a few irregularities, becomes a massive, criminal conspiracy over time to defraud the fisa and to keep an operation open against a sitting president of the United States, violating every norm known to the rule of law. Any of you are prosecutors, many of you have been u. S. Attorneys. Many of you have been defense attorneys. Rumps time will come and go but i hope you understand what happened here can never happen again, because what happened here is not a few irregularities, what happened here is the system failed. People at the highest level of our government took the law in their own hands. And when i say defraud the fisa court, i mean it. To your team, you were able to uncover and discover abuse of power i never believed would actually exist in 2019. How bad is it . J edgar hoover came back to life, the old f. B. I. The f. B. I. That had a chip on its shoulder and wanted to intimidate people and find out what was going on in your life, ed the lobblaw be damn Martin Luther king, and just fill in names. Who ran this thing . The people were handpicked by mccabe. The number two guy at the f. B. I. , theupervisory agent Deputy Assistant director for counterintelligence is peter strzok, a big player in all things crossfire hurricane. Lisa page, you may have heard of her. Who was she . She was on f. B. I. Lawyer working for mccabe. These are two central characters in this tobacco. Let me tell you a little dust in this debacle in this debacle. Leslie tilly a little bit about who these people are and where they are coming from. Work byo a lot of hard people from mr. Horowitz at the f. B. I. And others, here is what we know. Strzok, the front line 2016,isor february 12, oh, he is abysmal. I keep hoping the charade will end and people will just dump him. Rubiooblem then is that will likely lose to cruz. I never quite made it come and i can understand why they would not consider me a serious candidate. The Republican Party is utter shambles. When was the last competitive ticket they offered . God, 2016, page trump is a loathsome. Strzok oh my god, he is an idiot. Newsrooms around the country, people are nodded. This represents the attitude of a lot of people in america, and you can have that attitude, but you shouldnt be in the journalism business, you should be at the f. B. I. If you are in the military and you said anything like this a commanderinchief, youd be charged with a crime. Remember the mcchrystal debacle where they had a ballroom discussion with a reporter from the Rolling Stone . Whats the take away, dont go to the bar with a reporter. They started talking about how they didnt like joe biden. I was one of the first people who said, that was out of bounds. You can have all the political opinions you want, but if you are an officer of the u. S. Thosery, you will park opinions and you will not speak ill of the commanderinchief. Obviously. Is not a rule of the f. B. I. And the department of justice. March 16, 2016 i cannot believe donald trump is likely to be actual serious candidate for president. July 16, closer to when this thing opens, and well donald trump is an enormous douche. Again, a lot of people agree with that. Trump barely spoke, but the first thing out of his mouth was, we are going to win. So the whole thing is like living in a bad dream july 19, 2016. Trump is a disaster, i have no idea how destabilizing his presidency will be. You are entitled to believe that, but you should not be an investigator. July 30 2016 when the n,vestigation is open dam this feels momentous about the investigation and this one letters. The other one did, too, but that was to make sure we did not f something up. This matters. Super glad to be on this with you. I hope you understand what this was about. August 8, 2016 three days before strzok was named the front line supervisor he is not ever going to become president , right . Strzok. A no, we will stop it. These are the people in charge. August 15, 2016 i want to believe the path he threw out for consideration in andys office, that there is no way he gets elected, but i am afraid we cant take that risk that the American People will pick their president , is what they are saying. It is like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you are 40. Toust 26 2016 just went southern virginia walmart. I could smell the trump support. People in charge 2016 currently fightingfor the fisa. Stew was a lawyer who thought this thing was not on the up and up, stood his ground until he couldnt stand it anymore, eventually got run over. October 19, 2016 i am all riled up. Ismp is an fing idiot, unable to provide a coherent answer. Probabilityk times numbers are dropping everyday. I am scared for our organization. November 3, 2016 oh my god, this is fing terrifying. Referencing an article entitled a victory by trump remains possible. November 9, 2016 are you ever going to give out your calendars, some kind of depressing. Maybe it should be the first meeting of the secret society. I bought 2016 all the president s men. I figured i need to brush up on watergate. November 13, 2016 two pages away from finishing all the president s men. Page to strzok, did you know the president resigns at the end . To page watch . That would be so lucky. The date page accepted a position on the special counsels team for me, in this case, i personally have a sense of unfinished business. Now i need to fix it and finish it. F if oneho gives a more assistant director or whoever, an investigation leading to impeachment . 2017 you and i both know the odds are nothing if i and be it was likely, there, no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there is no big there, there. Talking about impeachment. May 20 2, 2017 i am torn. I am the best for it, but there are others who can do it ok. You are different and more unique. This is yours talking to a page. Are eight. Thats the front line supervisor, in the lawyer to mccabe. Who,s a guy named smith eventually alters and email from the c. I. A. To the department of justice and the f. B. I. Mr. Horowitz and his team found this out. How they did it, i will never know. I am jumping ahead here, but when you read this report, what they find is that a lawyer supervising the fisa process at the f. B. I. , according to mr. And emaildoctored from the c. I. A. To the f. B. I. , and he will be referred for criminal prosecution. Why is that important . Carter page, who has been on the receiving end of all this, the foundation to believe he was before an agent comes from a dossier that we will talk about in a minute. In that dossier, provided by Christopher Steele, and we will talk about him in a minute, they claim that carter page meets with three known to be russians, russian agents, People Associated with russia. Carter page, while being wiretapped by his government, says, i dont know two of these people, and to this day, there is no proof that he ever met two of those three. The third person, he says, yeah, i met him. I told the c. I. A. About my meeting because i was a source for the c. I. A. So they would have you believe that carter page is working against our government, not with our government. So carter page, in the summer of 2017, is trying to tell anybody and everybody i was working with the c. I. A. I reported my contact with this person, and nobody believed it. The c. I. A. Had told the f. B. I. It was true earlier. But it never made it through the system. Somebody got so rattled at the f. B. I. , they asked mr. Kleinsmith to check it out. Out, hes it communicates with the c. I. A. Is carter page a source for you . They email exchange, say, yes he is. What does mr. Kleinsmith do . He doctors the emailed to say, no, he is not. And you caught him. , dont know how you caught him because youve got to dig into this email chain. It would be like getting a lab report from the f. B. I. The fingerprints dont match, and the agent says they do. That is how bad this is. Now, let me tell you a little bit about mr. Kleinsmith, if i can find it. [papers wrestling] papers rustling] [laughter] chairman graham this is the lawyer supervising the process, the guy that doctored the email because he didnt want the court to know that part of age actually was a source. Why does it matter . Because if the court had known there was a lawful reason for mr. Page to be talking to the russian guy, he wasnt working against his country, he was working with his country. Which undercuts the idea he is a foreign agent. That is why kleinsmith lied, because he didnt want to stop this investigation. Iis after the election am so stressed about what i could have done differently. The day after the election i am just devastated, i cant wait until i can leave today and just shut off the road for the next four days. I am sure a lot of people felt that way after trump got elected, maybe still feel that way, but you shouldnt be in charge of supervising anything about donald trump if you feel that way. I just cant imagine the systematic disassembly of the progress weve made over the last eight years. The Obama Administration. The crazies won finally. This is the lawyer that they put in charge of supervising the work process [laughter] this is the tea party on steroids, and i am sure there are newsrooms all over america saying, thats absolutely right. What is wrong with that . Whatever. This is what the guy is saying right after the election. And it is just hard not to feel like the f. B. I. Caused some of this. It was a razor thin. In some states. Name is all damn over the legal documents investigating trumps staff. This is the one that gives me 22, shortlynovember after the election of donald j. Trump, the f. B. I. Lawyer in charge of supervising the fisa process tweets out to friends viva la resistance. What are the odds that this guy might do something wrong . Would you have to be part of a right wing conspiracy to predict in the future maybe this guy will get off script . Folks, if these are a few irregularities, the rule of law in this country is dead. And heres the good news, these are not a few irregularities, these are a few bad people. That could not believe that wanted to win, and when he wo, couldnt tolerate the fact that he won. And all these smelly people elected him. This is bad stuff. Report out of this lawful investigation with a few irregularities, it says more about you than mr. Horowitz. How in the hell did this whole thing start . What got us here today . They open up the counterintelligence investigation in july. We know the russians are missing in our elections. And it was the russians, ladies and gentlemen, who still the Democratic National committee emails, podestas emails, and screwed around with Hillary Clinton. It wasnt the ukrainians, it was the russians, and they are coming after us again. So to be concerned that the russians are messing with president ial campaigns was a legitimate concern. They looked around at the Trump Campaign and said, well, lets beef with lets see if we can attack the Trump Campaign. Carter page went to moscow a lot and made speeches. If you have ever met carter page, one thing you will not accuse him of his being james bond. Papadopoulos, picked to be part of Trumps National security team, this National Security team was literally picked up off the street. If you had a photo with donald trump, you spent more time with donald trump than papadopoulos and page. They are not paid, they are volunteers, but the f. B. I. Thinks, we need to watch these guys. Manafort, as well as who is the other 1 flynn. So they open up a counterintelligence investigation. Lets assume for a moment that the small predicate you need has been met. What the hell happened after they opened it up . What did they find . Were their suspicions validated, or did they find at every turn, it is really not true, and they ignored it . One of the first thing they tried to do was to get a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to follow carter page, a volunteer for the campaign, and american citizen. They applied for the warrant 2016,ally in august of and the lawyer say, you dont have enough. Why . Because they had nothing. This reasonable articulation is this small, but to get a want from a court, youve got to have probable course. So the lawyer is say to get a warrant from a court, youve got to have probable cause. But the lawyer is saying, you dont have it. Everybody is frustrated, folks. Thats not the right answer. So the number two guy at the f. B. I. Suggest, lets go look at the steele dossier, maybe that will get us over the hump. Stay tuned. In all talk about that minute. September 19, for the first time , they introduced the steele dossier into the warrant application process. It works. September 21, they get a signoff, lets get a warrant. The dossier got them to where they wanted to go. As you say, mr. Horowitz, it was central and basically outcomedeterminitive. Without the dossier they go nowhere, with it, they are off to the races. Who is Christopher Steele . You think these other people were bad . Wait till you hear about this guy. Christopher steele was a forme mi6, is that right, 6, 5, whatever it is he was a british agent, retired. He had a a business. He was that he had a new line of business. He was hired by a Company Called fusion gps to investigate donald trump, ok. You want to look at foreign influence, you are about to find it. Fusion gps was on the payroll of the Democratic National party. Christopher steele is working for a company to find dirt on trump, and the money comes from the democratic party. Did they tell the court this, no. Is that a bit unnerving it would be to me. So Christopher Steele is on the peril of a Company Funded by the democratic party. Of a on the payroll Company Funded by the democratic party. Here is what they say about Christopher Steele he was passionate about donald trump not getting elected and about him not the u. S. President. This was the guy that gave them the work product to get the warrant. Orr, that if trump won the election, his network would be in jeopardy. That he could decide to take action against steele and his source network. Let me tell you about Christopher Steele. Orr was right, he was an omission to get donald trump. Not only did he provide the dossier that made the difference that helps them get the warrant, it was well known that he was shopping the dossier to anybody and everybody in the media and in politics to see if they would print it. The reason the f. B. I. Cut him loose is because they found out he was shopping this thing around to the Media Outlets rather than being a valid source. But after they knew he was shopping it around, they kept him around anyway because mr. Orr kept talking to him. Bruce orrs wife worked with Christopher Steele. She was employed by fusion gps, the wife of the number 4 guy at the f. B. I. Christopher steele went all over the United States trying to get Media Outlets to publish this garbage. The first thing is about the golden shower. Encounter thatl President Trump supposedly had been a Ritzcarlton Hotel in russia. You how i come to find out about Christopher Steeles work product. 2016, john mccain goes to a National Security conference in canada and somebody tells him about the dossier, and its bad, and you need to know about it, and it gets to john mccain. John mccain puts it in his safe. He gives it to me, and i read it. The first thing i thought of was, oh my god. This could be russian disinformation, or they may have something on trump. If you read this document, the first thing you would think of is, they got something on donald trump. It is stunning. It is damning. It is salacious. And its a bunch of crap guy thatlly find the repaired all the information. But, a little bit about steele in 2015, the British Intelligence service said, you need to watch this guy, he is not reliable. They take time to go to london to check steele out and they are told he demonstrates lack of selfawareness or judgment, keen to help, but underpinned by poor judgment, judgment pursuing people of Political Risk but no intel value. If you had spent 30 minutes looking at Christopher Steele, you would understand this guy is biased, hes got an ax to grind, he is on the payroll of the opposing party, take anything he says with a grain of salt. In january, 2017, the f. B. I. Figures out who the sub source of the steele dossier is. What you need to know, this is not what steele found himself, this is what he gathered from one person. They finally found out who this one person is. They go talk to him in january 2017. Where is that . A purse pop five peopleham interviewed the primary sub source, the guy who provided steele with everything, and they showed him the dossier. 86190. Es what does the russian guy tell the f. B. I. About the dossier . That steele misstated or exaggerated the prime some source of the statement, that sexual alleged activities in the hotel in moscow was rumor and speculation. He went on to say, he heard it in a bar. In the report, it suggests that a western employee at the ritzcarlton confirmed this escapade by then private citizen trump. When he read that, he says, thats not true. I never told steele that somebody working for the ritzcarlton confirm this, i heard it at a bar. Primary sub source stated that he never expected steele to put his statements in the report or to present them as facts. They were wordofmouth and hearsay, conversations had with friends over beers, where statements made in just that should be taken with a grain of salt statements made in jest that should be taken with a grain of salt. So the person who did all the assembling of the information for the nowfamous steele dossier tells the f. B. I. , i disavow everything in there. Now, what should happen . Timeout . Lets reassess . Maybe we got this wrong what would you hope to happen . That the f. B. I. Would slowdown . They dont slowdown. Isy use the document that now known to be a bunch of garbage, twice more to get a warned against carter page. I hope carter page gets a lawyer and sues the hell out of the department of justice and the f. B. I. Two more warrants were obtained after being told in january by the russian guy that it was all a bunch of bull. But it gets worse. Here is how they describe the interview to the court. The f. B. I. Found that the russianbased sub source to between full and cooperative to be truthful and cooperative. And oh, by the way, he said everything and theres a bunch of bull. Of 2017, ifjanuary there was no doubt before, you know, by the guy who prepared it, he disavowed everything. I didnt say all these things. Is of stopping, they keep going. Instead of telling the court the truth, that they are required to do, they lie to the court. A few irregularities. How would you like this to happen in your life . How would you like to be on the receiving end of this . Business, hownews would you like this to be your News Organization . 2017, there is no benefit of a doubt to be given. These five people, from the department of justice and the f. B. I. , have been told by the one guy who did all the work that it is a bunch of garbage, and the question is, how far up to the system didnt go . Why did they apply for warrants twice more . Why didnt they stop . Everybody wants to know, is there any bias here . What motivated these people . Why do you think they kept going . Maybe because they were on a mission not to protect trump, but to protect us from trump. Thats what they were trying protect all of us smelly people from donald trump. Thats what this is about. Whether you believe it or not, i believe it, and you know what, it could happen to you all next time. There are some pretty passionate people on that side and i wouldnt want to be investigating any of you. So, what happens next . They get a warrant twice more when they know it is a bunch of garbage, they lied to the court about the actual interview. I dont know what mccabe and comey new, but am trying to find out. 2017. 2016 this is the next time they take the law into their own hands. Mr. Kleinsmith. Themonths after being told dossier is a bunch of garbage, kleinsmith alters an email from the c. I. A. To he is from he is not, because if they had told the court that page was working for the c. I. A. , it explains the contact in the dossier. Mr. Kleinsmith had a chance in his mind to make things right, and he took it. Why did he take the law in his own hands . Why did he dr. The email . Did it have anything to do with the way he sees Donald Trumps presidency . You know what, it really doesnt , iter what he was thinking matters what he did. And i am glad you found out what he did. I am glad you told the country what he did, because im hoping nobody will ever do it again. Horowitz, 17 irregularities that you found, some of them are earth shattering, some of them should scare the hell out of all of us. I just want to end where i began, this is not normal. Dont judge the f. B. I. And the department of justice by these characters. We are better than this. Like many of you, i have worked with the f. B. I. A lot of my time in government. I have a Great Respect for them. Director wray, youve got a problem. And for this hearing to mean anything, weve got to fix it. And the way we fix it is listen to mr. Horowitz and get the director of the f. B. I. In here in a way find out, that makes sure this never happens again to any politician in this country. It is trump today, it could be you or me tomorrow. And imagine, ladies and gentlemen, if they could do this to the candidate for president of the United States, what could they do to you . Will e Trump Presidency end in a year or five years, i dont know when, i hope he gets reelected. But we can write this off as being just about one man or one event. Weve got to understand how the system got. I will leave with some optimism here, i think democrats and republicans are willing to mature this never happens again. Make sure this never happens again. That if you open up a contra intelligence investigation on the president ial campaign in the future, there needs to be more checks and balances. I need you to audit the fisa process. Might be and senator lee mike lee and senator lee are probably the standardbearers for libertiespcruz, we all care. Whothese are the two constantly want to make sure that someone is watching those who watch us. While im may not agree with all of your concerns or your solutions, i respect the fact that you care. I hope you will not treat this report as finding a lawful investigation with a few irregularities. But a pretty hawkish guy, if the court doesnt take corrective action and do something about being manipulated and lied to, you will lose my support. I know a lot about whats going on out there to hurt us, and there are real threats, and there are real agents, there are really bad actors out there. I would hate to lose the ability of the fisa court to operate at probably the time when we needed the most. But after your report, i have serious concerns about whether the fisa court can continue unless there is fundamental reform. After the report, i think we need to rewrite the rules of how you start a counterintelligence investigation, and the checks and balances that we need. Mr. Horowitz, for us to do justice to your report, we have to do more than just try to shade this report one way or the other, we have to address the underlying problem of the system in the hands of a few bad people can do a lot of damage. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I assume there is no time limit. Chairman graham take all the time you need. I wont take a long time. I have been reading these reports come of it is in gentleman, for 25 years and i have great appreciation for the Inspector General. I just want to make those personal remarks. This is a tough arena, and as you can see, there are very tough people, part of that arena, but to have an Inspector General who tells it as they see it, and does this year after year is a saving grace. I hope people will get this report. If i have a grievance, it is that the print is too small. Chairman graham i agree with fact. Thank you very much. And it is heavier carry around, year, this Inspector General pledged to congress that he would examine whether medical bias played a role in the f. B. I. s decision to investigate ties between russia and the Trump Campaign. The Inspector General kept his promise. His Office Conducted in 19month investigation. They interviewed more than 100 witnesses, reviewed more than one million documents, and issued this 434page report that contains several important findings. Bias, on the question of Inspector General horowitz found no evidence that political or antitrump bias was at play. Report, the the ig f. B. I. Complied with existing department and f. B. I. Policies in opening the investigation. Did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced this decision. Or any specific investigative steps taken by the f. B. I. Thats the finding. This is important. Why . In public statements beginning last spring, the attorney general expressed his belief that senior government officials may have put a thumb on the scale because of political bias against trump. s comments echoed the president who has repeatedly alleged that there is a deep state within the government against him. He has used this to dismiss the entire Russian Investigation as a witch hunt, and hoax. The igs report conclusively refutes these claims. This was not a politically motivated investigation, there simply put,state, the f. B. I. Investigation was motivated by facts, not bias. Secondly, the Inspector General confirmed there was an adequate predicate, meaning, a legitimate, factual and legal basis to investigate. The basis was not, as some have claimed, the socalled steele dossier. In fact, reporting from mr. Steele played no role in opening the investigation. Confirmsthis report that the f. B. I. Opened the investigation after being told by australia, a trusted for an ally, that trump advisor George Papadopoulos had learned in 2016, the month of april, that russia had and was willing to release information during the campaign that would be damaging to candidate clinton. The ig report found that this information provided the f. B. I. With a factual basis that is indicated activity constituting either a federal crime or a threat to National Security, or both may have occurred or maybe occurring. The ig also found that when the f. B. I. Learned that in late july, 2016 the bureau was aware of russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 elections, including russian hacking of Democratic Campaign computers, materials stolen by russia had been released online, including by weektoweeks. By wikileaks. And the u. S. Intelligence community assessed in august of 2016 that russia was considering further intelligence operations to impact and disrupt elections. Thenst this backdrop, f. B. I. Was obligated to investigate possible ties to the Trump Campaign. P, theing to bill prece f. B. I. Assistant director who authorized opening the investigation, other officials conveyed a similar obligation and sense of urgency to investigate. Rothman, in National Security division chief said, it would have been a dereliction of duty and responsibility of the highest order not to commit the appropriate resources as urgently as possible to run these facts to the ground and find out what was going on. The decision to open the investigation was unanimous, not a single official disagreed. As a result, america ultimately learned extensive details about russias sweeping and systemic attack on the 2016 election, included that the Trump Campaign knew about, welcomed, and expected it would benefit ally from russias efforts. The report also identifies several errors made by f. B. I. And Justice Department personnel when seeking warrants for surveillance on carter page from the fisa court. Fbi director ray submitted a written response accepting the i. G. s findings, including the key finding that the f. B. I. Had sufficient cause to investigate Trumps Campaign ties to russia. Director wray also said that the i. G. s findings of fisa errors criticism thatve will make us stronger as an organization. And that he has already taken action to address the i. G. s recommendations. By contrast, attorney general barr issued a press release that continues to criticize the f. B. I. For investigating the Trump Campaign. Its really extraordinary that the attorney general continues to make unsupported attacks on the agency that he is responsible for leading. Heelieve strongly that decided to move on from the bias,claims of political and those who have shown great interest in the question of politically motivated investigations against President Trump, should show the same concern about politically motivated investigations requested by the president or his attorney general. Inspector general horowitz, i want to thank you on behalf of of this side and your staff for the hard work. We look forward to hearing from you. Mr. Horowitz thank you. Graham, senator feinstein, numbers of the committee, thank you for today. G me to testify the report that my Office Released this week is a product of a comprehensive and exhaustive review conducted over the past 19 months by an oig team that examined over one million documents, in the departments and the fbis position, including documents other u. S. And Foreign Government agencies had limited to the f. B. I. Our team had conducted over 170 interviews involving more than 100 witnesses, and we documented all of our findings in the 434page report issued this week. I would encourage everybody to read the report, although i understand for hundred page reports can be hard to get through. We do have in 19page executive summary with it that i would encourage people to read at a minimum. Thent to commend also tireless efforts of our outstanding review team for conducting such a rigorous and effective independent oversight. Its exactly what we are supposed to do as inspectors general. The f. B. I. Investigation that is the subject of this report, crossfire hurricane, was open in 2016, days after the f. B. I. Received reporting from a aiendly foreignthe reporting sn may 2016 meeting with the government,eign Trump Campaign advisor George Papadopoulos suggested the ofmp team received some kind suggestion from russia that it could assist in the election process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to candidate clinton and thenpresident obama. Following receipt of that information, the fbi opened crossfire hurricane. Given the nature and sensitivity of such an investigation, we would expect fbi personnel to faithfully adhere to detailed policies, practices and norms. The fbi has developed and earned a reputation as one of the worlds premier Law Enforcement agencies, insignificant part because of its adherence to those policies, and its tradition of professionalism, impartiality and nonpolitical enforcement of the law. We identified significant concerns with how aspects of the investigation were supervised, particularly the fbis failure to adhere to its own standards of accuracy ness wheneteb applying for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authority known as fisa to surveilled carter page, a u. S. Person connected to the trump president ial campaign. We determined the decision to open crossfire hurricane was made by thenfbi counterintelligence director, whose decision reflected a consensus releas reached after multiple days. We reviewed her department and fbi policies and concluded the assistant directors exercise of discretion in opening the investigation was in compliance with those policies. We also reviewed, as detailed in the report, the emails Text Messages and other documents of those involved in that decision. And we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that indicated political bias or improper motivation influencing his decision to open the investigation. While the information in the fbis possession at the time was limited, in light of the low threshold established by department and fbi predication policy, which is by the way not ofegal requirement but one fbi policy, we found that crossfire hurricane was opened for an authorized investigative purpose with sufficient predication. The decision to open crossfire hurricanes, which involve the activities of individuals associated with a National MajorParty Campaign for president , was under department and fbi policy a discretionary judgment left to the fbi. As we point out in our report, there was no Requirement Department officials be consulted or notified of that decision prior to the fbi making that decision. Theistent with this policy, fbi advised supervisors in the departments National Security division of the investigation days after it had been opened. As we detail in our report, highlevel Department Notice and approval is required in other circumstances, when investigative activity could substantially impact certain Civil Liberties, and that notice allows a Department Officials to consider potential implications in advance of those activities. We concluded similar notice should be required in circumstances such as those present here. Thetly after the fbi opened crossfire hurricane investigation, the fbi conducted several consensually monitored meetings, recorded meetings, between fbi confidential human sources, chss, and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, including a highlevel official not subject to the investigation. We found the chs operations receive the necessary approval under fbi policy, and an fbi assistant director knew about and approve each operation, even in circumstances where what was only required was first level supervisory agent approval, and that the operations were permitted under department and fbi policy because use was not for the sole purpose of monitoring activities protected by the First Amendment or the lawful use of other rights secured by the constitution or the laws of the United States. Ord not fin documentary testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the fbis decision to conduct the chs operations. Additionally, we found no evidence the fbi attempted to reporting onhin or the Trump Campaign or members of the Trump Campaign recruited as chss. However, we were concerned that under Applicable Department and fbi policy, it would have been sufficient for a first level supervisor to launch a domestic chs operation undertaken in crossfire hurricane and there is no applicable fbi policy requiring the fbi to notify Department Officials of a decision to task a confidential human source to consensually monitor, in other words record, conversations with members of a political campaign. Just, in terms of that, it is an earlierg that had investigation, or this investigation, the fbi could have at the supervisory agent level authorized an undercover, or a confidential human source to have a consensually monitored information with either of the president ial candidates, with no notice to the department of justice, or any lawyer in the department of justice. Hurricane, where each of the operations had the potential to gather Sensitive Information protected by the First Amendment, we found no evidence of the fbi consulting with Department Officials before conducting those operations, and no policy as i noted requiring them to do so. We concluded that the Current Department fbi policies are not sufficient to ensure appropriate oversight and accountability, when such operations potentially implicate sensitive, constitutionallyprotected activity, and that requiring department consultation at a minimum would be appropriate. We make a recommendation to that effect. One investigative tool which the does require express advance approval by a Senior Department official is a court order under fisa. When the Crossfire Hurricane Team first proposed a fisa order targeting carter page in mid august 2016, fbi attorneys assisting considered it a close call, and the fisa order was not requested at the time. However, in september 2016, immediately after the class by Hurricane Team received reporting from Christopher Steele concerning pages alleged recent activities with russian officials, fbi attorneys advised the department it was ready to move forward with the request of fisa to surveilled page. Fbi and Department Officials said the reporting pushed the fisa proposal over the line in terms of establishing probable cause, and we concluded the steele reporting played a essential role in the fisa order. Fbi leadership supported relying on steeles reporting to ck fisa after seek a fisa order hearing concerns steele may have been hired with someone associated with a rival candidate or campaign. Security authority under fisa can significantly assist government efforts to combat terrorism, clandestine intelligence activities and other threats to National Security. At the same time, the use of this authority unavoidably raises civil liberty concerns. Fisa can be used to surveilled u. S. Persons, and in some cases the surveillance will foreseeably collect information about the individuals constitutionally protected activities, such as carter pages legitimate activities on behalf of a president ial campaign. Moreover, proceedings before the foreign Intelligence Surveillance court, which is responsible for ruling on applications for fisa orders, are ex parte, meaning that unlike most court proceedings, the government is the only party present, and fisa orders have not been subject to scrutiny through subsequent adversarial proceedings, like courtauthorized search warrants and wiretap applications are, potentially through the criminal process. In light of these concerns, the fisa statute and fbi policies and procedures have established important safeguards to protect the fisa application process from irregularities and abuse. Important are the requirements in fbi policy that every fisa application must contain a full and accurate presentation of the facts, and that agents must ensure that all factual statements in fisa applications are scrupulously accurate. These are the standards for all fisa applications, regardless of the investigations sensitivity, and it is incumbent upon the fbi to meet them in every application. Nevertheless, we found investigators failed to meet basic obligations of ensuring the fisa applications were scrupulously accurate. We identified significant inaccuracies and omissions in each of the four applications. Seven in the first application, and 17 by the final renewal application. For example, the Crossfire Hurricane Team obtained information from steeles primary sub source in january 20 17 raising significant questions about the reliability of the reporting. This was particularly noteworthy because the fisa application relied entirely on information from primaryle, sub sources reporting to support the allegation that page was coordinating with the russian government on the 2016 u. S. President ial election activities. However, the fbi did not share this information with Department Lawyers, and it was therefore omitted from the last two renewal applications. All the applications also omitted information that the fbi obtained in august 2017, sorry, august 2016, from another u. S. Government agency, detailing its prior relationship with carter page, including that carter page had been approved as an operational contact for that other agency from 2008 to 2013, that page had provided information to the other agency concerning his prior contacts with certain russian intelligence officers, and that an employee of that other agency assessed that carter page had been candid with them. The fbi never followed up on that information. As a result of these seven significant inaccuracies and omissions, relevant information was not shared with and consequently considered by Department Lawyers and the fisa court, and the fisa applications made it appear as though the evidence supporting probable cause was stronger than was actually the case. We also found basic, fundamental serious errors during the completion of the factual accuracy reviews. They are designed to ensure that the fisa applications contain a full and accurate presentation of the facts. Department lawyers and the court should have been given complete, Accurate Information so they could have meaningfully evaluated probable cause before authorizing the surveillance of a u. S. Person associated with a president ial campaign. That did not occur, and as a result, the surveillance of carter page continued, even as the fbi gathered information that weakened the assessment of probable cause and made the fisa application less accurate. We concluded that investigators did not give appropriate consideration or attention to facts that cut against probable cause, and that as the investigation progressed and more information tended to undermine or weaken the assertion in the fisa applications, investigators did not reassess the information supporting probable cause. Further, the agents and supervisory agents did not follow or even appear to know certain basic requirements in the procedures. Although we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct, we also did not receive satisfactory explanations for any of the errors or omissions we identified. We found, and as we outline here, are deeply concerned that so many basic and fundamental errors were made by three separate handpicked investigative teams, on one of the most sensitive fbi investigations, after the matter had reached the highest levels of the fbi, even though the information sought through the use of fisa authority related so closely to an ongoing president ial campaign, and even though those involved with the investigation knew actions would likely be subjected to close scrutiny. These circumstances reflect a failure, not just by those who prepared the applications, but also by the managers and supervisors in the crossfire hurricane chain of command, including fbi senior officials who were briefed as the investigation progressed. We believe that in the fbis most sensitive and highpriority matters, especially when seeking Court Permission for an intrusive tool such as a fisa border, it is incumbent on the entire chain of command at the organization, including senior officials, to take necessary steps to ensure that they are sufficiently familiar with the facts and circumstances supporting and potentially undermining a fisa application effectiveo provide oversight consistent with their level of supervisory responsibility. Such oversight requires greater familiarity with the facts,. In this review, time and again, fbi managers, supervisors and senior officials displayed a lack of understanding or awareness of Important Information concerning many of the problems we identified. That is why, as you will see in the report, our final recommendation was to refer the entire chain of command that we outline here to the fbi and the department for consideration of how to assess and address their performance failures. Additionally, in light of the significant concerns we. G. Announcedhe o. I we are initiating an audit that will further examine the fbis compliance with procedures in fisa applications that target u. S. Persons, not only counterintelligence investigations, but also importantly in counterterrorism investigations. The o. I. G. Report made a number of other recommendations to the department and fbi. We believe implementing those, of individualhose accountability, will improve the fbis ability to utilize important National Security authorities like fisa, while also striving to safeguard the Civil Liberties and privacy of impacted persons. Continue. Will rigorous oversight of these matters in the months and years ahead, including recommendations made in this report. That concludes my statement, and i would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have. Graham thank you and thank you for your service to the country. Former fbi director james comey said the report vindicates him. Is that a Fair Assessment of your report . Mr. Horowitz i think the activities we found here dont vindicate anybody who touched this. Sen. Graham lets run a clip 2018. What comey said in itd clean nice to have sound. Do we have sound it would be nice to have sound. Do we have sound . Nevermind. I will read it. Caneporter is asking him, i ask you a question on fisa abuse . It is a major issue for the republicans. Do you have total confidence in the dossier that you used to secure surveillance warrants and the subsequent renewal . This was in december 2018, about a year ago. Comey, i have total confidence the fisa process was followed, that the entire case was handled in a thoughtful and responsible way at doj and the fbi, and i wask the notion that fisa abused here is nonsense. Would it be fair to say that you take issue with that statement . Mr. Horowitz certainly, our findings were that comeyraham so when speaks about fisa, you should not listen. You should listen to mr. Horowitz. Hes not vindicated, and to be concerned about the fisa warrant process is not nonsense. Christopher steele, is it fair to say he had a political bias against donald trump . Mr. Horowitz given who he was paid by, there was a bias that needed to be disclosed to the court. Sen. Graham did it seem he had personal bias, not just because he was on the payroll . Mr. Horowitz we found, mr. Ohrs comment that he was desperate to prevent mr. Trumps election. Sen. Graham this is the guy who provides the dossier that gets a warrant against carter page. Hes paid for by the democratic party, and he personally believes it is bad for donald trump to win. He is marketing the dossier, which is a bunch of garbage, to anybody and everybody. Is that important to you . Mr. Horowitz any evidence of bias is supposed to be disclosed to the court, and Department Lawyers. Sen. Graham so lets play this out. In january 2017 when they figure out the primary sub source and talk to the russian guy who provided steele all the information, what should the fbi have done at that moment . Mr. Horowitz two things. Reconsidered internally where things stood, and most importantly told the lawyers at the Justice Department who they were asking to help them get a fisa. Sen. Graham and there are five people in that interview . Mr. Horowitz right. Sen. Graham are you going to make sure they are known to the higherups . Mr. Horowitz they are all part of the referral i mentioned earlier. Sen. Graham did they have a duty to report to their supervisors and eventually to the court this exculpatory information . Mr. Horowitz absolutely. Sen. Graham they did not. Why . Mr. Horowitz thats a question i cannot specifically answer for you. Sen. Graham can you say it was not because of political bias . Mr. Horowitz on decisions regarding the fisa matters, i do not know. Sen. Graham so we are talking about actions now, trying to figure out what motivates people. Do you think comey and mccabe should have known . Mr. Horowitz thats a challenging question. As we explain in the report, there were multiple briefings up the chain, including to the director and deputy director. We dont have a clear record of what precisely they were told, and we know sen. Graham would you be surprised it didnt make it up the system . Would you find that earth shattering . Mr. Horowitz i will not speculate as to why. Sen. Graham did strzok know . Mr. Horowitz there were three iterations of the team. Mr. Strzok actually transitioned off of this matter in january 2017, so id have to go back and look. Sen. Graham in february he mentioned steele cannot verify, so pretty clear to me. So the court should have been told and they were not. How did they describe this meeting to the court, in the warrant application . Mr. Horowitz in the second and third renewals, the last two applications, they told the court they interviewed steeles primary sub source, on whom he relied in writing the reporting, and found the primary sub source to be credible. They did not tell the court or the Department Lawyers any of the information which would have youowed them to know that if found the primary sub source credible, you could not have also found the steele report credible. Sen. Graham did they mislead the court . Mr. Horowitz that was misleading to the court and the department. Sen. Graham so they failed to report obviously exculpatory information. And when they did report to the court about the interview, they lied about it. Mr. Horowitz but let me add also, that a year later, in june of 2018, when the department sent a letter to the court informing them of other information that had not been provided to the court, the Department Still didnt know about the primary sub source information. So when the department in his letter said it still stood behind the fisa application, they reference the primary subsource, and the fact the fbi found that person sen. Graham so are these the best and brightest that we have . Mr. Horowitz certainly, the actions of the fbi agents on this were not mccabe handpicked to these people. Are they representative of the department on a whole as you view . Mr. Horowitz i certainly hope thats not the way others are following these practices. Sen. Graham me, too. Juneets fastforward to 2016. Swh risky . Ith, mr. Horowitz i will who is he . Mr. Horowitz i will decline on talking about people we dont mention in the report. Sen. Graham tell me about the guy who altered the email from the cia. Mr. Horowitz there was a lawyer in the office of the general counsel of the fbi who was the line attorney working with the agents, and counterparts at the National Security division on the fisa. That individual, in june of 2017, as the last application was being prepared, and immediately following mr. Page, or page going to news outlets after word of the fisas hit the o themedia, and said tht news media that i was someone who worked with Us Intelligence agencies, lawyers and agents said, we have to figure out what is the story. Is that what happened . G. C. Attorney for the fbi reached out to a liaison at the other agency at issue the sourcen, was mr. Page a or contact of some sort for your organization . The report back in the email referenced august 2016 memorandum that agency provided to the fbi that i mentioned in my opening statement, that the fbi did no thatwup on, and said what recollectioneral regulatio was, that mr. Paige was or is someone who had a relationship with the entity, with the other government agency, but that the lawyers should go look at the report for confirmation. The lawyer then had a conversation with the fbi agent fho was going to be the afe eant, the person who swore the final fisa application. Wasagent told us he concerned about what he had had saidbout what page publicly and wanted a definitive answer, as he put it. Sen. Graham if carter paige was telling the truth, it changes one of the predicates to consider him a foreign agent. Mr. Horowitz that was the concern of the agent. True, it would be helpful to mr. Page. Mr. Horowitz but at a minimum, without any doubt, it should have been known and followed up on. Sen. Graham what did the lawyer do at the fbi . Mr. Horowitz when the lawyer had the discussion with the agent and the agent said, i want to see it, do you have it in writing, the lawyer said he did and forwarded the liaisons email but altered it to insert the word and not a source, into the email. Sen. Graham so he doctored it . Mr. Horowitz he doctored the toginal email from liaison. It flatly stated he was not a sen. Graham imagine, if you are representing some of the as a defense attorney and they do this to one of your clients. Whaty did he, motivated him to do that . Unknown asz it is to precisely why he did it. Viva laam the resistance guy. Mr. Horowitz we mentioned here the Text Messages you mentioned. We have not made a determination. We referred it sen. Graham you did a great job. The old adage, if you wake up you can assume it rained. If you have a guy who hates inks pence is stupid and you give him power over trump, maybe youre making a mistake. Or maybe these guys with all these biases did nothing about it, or maybe not. Is it fair to say after january 2017 when the guy who gave steele all the information about the dossier, that not only they should have told the court, they should have slowed down, did the second and third warrant set a legal basis after that point . Mr. Horowitz we dont reach that conclusion. Sen. Graham would you have submitted a warrant application . Mr. Horowitz let me put it that way. I would not have submitted the one they put in, no doubt about it, it had no business going in. Sen. Graham i want you to know, january 2017 the whole foundation for surveilling carter page collapses, exculpatory information is ignored, they lied to the court about what the interview was all about. Is that a fair summary so far, about the january 20 17 mr. Horowitz ill, they certainly misled, it was misleading to the court. Sen. Graham fair enough. January, six months later when they find more information that could be helpful to mr. Page, they lie about it. Do you feel like mr. Page was treated fairly by the department of justice and the fbi . Mr. Horowitz i dont think the department of justice fairly treated these fisas and he was on the receiving end of them. Sen. Graham you would not want to be on the receiving end of this, what you . Mr. Horowitz i would not one agents or anyone failing to put forward all the information they were obligated to come forward with. Verygraham i would be comfortable with you investigating anybody, as i think you know the difference between getting somebody and trying to find the truth. Counterintelligence investigations. Whats the purpose of a counterintelligence investigation . Mr. Horowitz it is to identify potential threats to the nation. Sen. Graham ok. This was opened up as a counterintelligence investigation, right . And we know the russians were screwing around with the democrats, right . Thats one of the concerns. It was the russians who were hacking the dnc, got there emails. Mr. Horowitz right. Sen. Graham so it is alright for everyone to be concerned, what are the russians up to . I get that. What is the standard to start one of these things . Mr. Horowitz mr. Horowitz there are two types of investigations. Both of them have relatively low thresholds, as we point out here, for predication. Sen. Graham so lets assume that relatively low threshold was met. Would it be fair to say that if you stop there in looking at the report, you are making a mistake . Mr. Horowitz you would be making a mistake. Theres 400 pages here for a reason. Sen. Graham there is a mountain of misconduct. Please dont ignore it. So my point is, if this is a counterintelligence investigation, who are they trying to protect . Who should they be trying to protect . Mr. Horowitz well, if its the threat outlined in the friendly Foreign Government information, you would be looking to protect the election process, which would include the candidate, the campaign and the American People. Sen. Graham so did they ever breathe Hillary Clinton about efforts of foreign influences involving her campaign . Mr. Horowitz i have heard that, but i do not know. Sen. Graham they did. Good for them. And they stopped it. Was there ever a defensive briefing given by the fbi or department of justice to donald trump about concerns . Mr. Horowitz there was not. Sen. Graham what would you call a counterintelligence investigation that never had a protective element . Mr. Horowitz i am not sure. Sorry, mr. Chairman. Sen. Graham without eventually trying to protect the entity being influenced, is it legitimate . Mr. Horowitz it would depend on each factor and circumstance. Sen. Graham this is what im trying to say. If you open a counterintelligence investigation to protect somebody, you should do it. Did they ever try to protect donald trump from foreign influence . Mr. Horowitz they did not. Sen. Graham when they gave a vanilla briefing, the russians are out there, you had better be where, didnt they have an fbi agent do a 302 on the defensive briefing itself . Mr. Horowitz they sent a supervisory agent from crossfire hurricane, and that agent presented a file. Sen. Graham about what trump said. Mr. Horowitz what trump and mr. Flynn said. Sen. Graham would it be ok for fbi agents to open up 302s on what we said . Mr. Horowitz we have very significant concerns about that, and i would note director wrays response underlined that would not happen. Sen. Graham to set aside how we feel about trump for a minute. Under the guise of protecting the campaign from russian influence, they never lift a finger to protect the campaign. Every time they had information that the people they suspected were working for the russians, it went the other way and they kept going. Briefhey did generically candidate trump, they sent an fbi agent in to do a 302. If this doesnt bother you, you hate trump way too much. That fbi agent spying on donald trump when he went in there . Mr. Horowitz it was a pretext meeting that i am not going to, the process by which they have to do these meetings sen. Graham if you dont have a foundation for a warrant sorry, go ahead. Do you need to say anything else . Ok. Thehorowitz the incident, event, the meeting was a briefing, and the fbi considered and decided to send that agent there to do the briefing. So the agent was actually doing the briefing, but also using it for the purpose of investigation. Sen. Graham ok. I hope that doesnt happen to us tomorrow. I will be really pissed if it does. So lets play this out. They never told trump about the concerns. Is it fair to say there came a point where they are surveilling carter page, it became unlawful . Mr. Horowitz i will let the court decide that. The court has this report and will make that decision. Sen. Graham lets put it this way. If you dont have a Legal Foundation to surveilled somebody and keep doing it, is that bad . Mr. Horowitz absolutely. Legalraham whatever surveillance means, they did it. Theyl the stuff they did, did because they had no legal basis after the january 2017 data dump by the russian guy. They believed the dossier was reliable. They altered exculpatory information in june 2017 that would have further proven carter page is not a russian agent, was actually working with the cia. Let me ask you directly, do you believe carter page is or ever was an agent of the russian government trying to do harm to the country . Mr. Horowitz i will refer to the evidence we have here. The fbi, at the end of the fisa s, told us they found no evidence to cooperate the allegations corroborate the allegations. Sen. Graham it is not that clean folks. They knew it, and ignored it, andw continued surveilling him. Hy . Why did they doctor the email . Getting warrants after they knew it wasnt legitimate, they had a bias that reeked. How this was open, i dont know. I respect your view that there may have been a lawful predicate, giving them every benefit of the doubt, but one of the people pushing this was peter strzok from day one. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a task at hand here to make sure that this never happens again, to hold people accountable, change our laws, save the fisa court if we can, and i hope this chapter in American History is never repeated. Report theu report says lawful investigation with a few irregularities, you are doing a great disservice to the American People. Thank you very much. Sen. Feinstein thank you, mr. Chairman. As we spoke, Inspector General, your office spent 19 months, interviewed 100 witnesses, and your report concluded that the fbi had an adequate predicate reason to open the investigation on the Trump Campaign ties with russia. Could you quickly define that predicate . Mr. Horowitz yes. The predicate here was the information the fbi got at the end of july from a friendly Foreign Government, that reflected a meeting that the friendly Foreign Government had with mr. Papadopoulos in may. Sen. Feinstein who was the friendly Foreign Government . Mr. Horowitz we dont mention that in the report. Sen. Feinstein is that classified . Mr. Horowitz my understanding is still classified, but as i sit here i will only speak to the report. Sen. Feinstein go ahead. Mr. Horowitz and as i mentioned wasy statement, the comment that mr. Papadopoulos had made a suggestion that there had been a suggestion to the Trump Campaign that the russian government could provide information that would be damaging to candidate clinton, and thenpresident obama. Sen. Feinstein so your report states you didnt find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation played a role . Mr. Horowitz thats correct. Sen. Feinstein thank you. And you didnt find a deep state conspiracy against candidate or President Trump . Mr. Horowitz we found no documentary or testimonial evidence on that. Noted, thed, as decisionmaker, we did not find any information in his emails or texts of having engaged in or having any bias. Sen. Feinstein fbi director wray provided a written response to your report, accepting all of your findings, and these include the key finding that there was an authorized purpose and actual, factual predication for the investigation. By contrast, attorney general barr expressed his doubts about the legitimacy of the fbis investigation in press statements. Did attorney general barr provide any evidence to cause you to alter this key finding, had ahe fbi investigation n adequate predicate . Mr. Horowitz no. We stand by our findings. Sen. Feinstein during your investigation, attorney general barr expressed his belief that spying on the Trump Campaign did occur. You said your investigation found no evidence the fbi placed any confidential source within the Trump Campaign, or task to any confidential source to report on the Trump Campaign. Thats correct, right . Mr. Horowitz correct. Sen. Feinstein and further, no evidence political bias or improper motivations influenced the decision to use Confidential Sources as part of the investigation. Mr. Horowitz thats correct. Sen. Feinstein did your office ask attorney general barr and u. S. Attorney john durham to share whatever evidence they had that might be relevant to your investigation . Mr. Horowitz we asked mr. Durham to do that. Sen. Feinstein what about attorney general barr . Mr. Horowitz and attorney general barr. Sen. Feinstein thank you. So, nothing they could provide altered your offices conclusion that the fbi did not place spies in the Trump Campaign . Mr. Horowitz none of the discussions changed our findings. Sen. Feinstein thank you. In a press Statement Issued monday, u. S. Attorney john durham, tasked by attorney general barr to also investigate the origins of the russia investigation, stated last month, we advised the i. G. That we do not agree with some of the toorts conclusions, as predication in how the fbi case was opened. What is your reaction to that . Mr. Horowitz well, i was surprised by the statement. I didnt necessarily know it was going to be released on monday. We did meet with mr. Durham, as i mentioned. We provided him with a copy of the report, as we did others, in our factual accuracy review process. With regard to that, we did discuss the opening issue. Necessarilyid not agree with our conclusion about the opening of the full counterintelligence investigation, which is what this was. But there was also an investigative means by which the fbi can move forward with an investigation, called a preliminary investigation. There are two types, full and preliminary. The open daed a full here. He said that the information from the friendly Foreign Government was in his view sufficient to support the preliminary investigation, and as we noted in the report, investigative steps such as confidential human source activity here are allowed under a preliminary investigation or a full investigation. Sen. Feinstein did barr or durham present anything that altered your findings . Mr. Horowitz no. Sen. Feinstein i want to ask you, since we have the author of the whistleblower legislation very proudly sitting here, you previously told this committee that whistleblower rights and protections have been one of your highest priorities since becoming i. G. As you know, there have been calls for the ukraine whistleblower to be identified publicly, even though that person was not a direct witness to the events. So, what is your view . Whistleblower ukraine whistleblowers confidentially rtb briefed and that person identified, or why not . Mr. Horowitz whistleblower protections have been what are my highest priorities, and i appreciate working with all the committee, particularly senator grassley. We wrote a letter as the i. G. Quoting his statement on the issue and importance of whistleblowers. Whistleblowers have a right to expect complete, full confidentiality in all circumstances within the law of the i. G. Act that congress wrote. It is a very important provision. Sen. Feinstein thank you. In a public hearing before the house intelligence committee, deputy secretary of state george kent testified that politicallyassociated investigations or prosecutions against opponents of those in power undermine the rule of law. Do you agree with that . Do politicallymotivated investigations undermine the rule of law . Mr. Horowitz i agree. Any politically motivated investigation undermines the rule of law. Sen. Feinstein thank you very much. Did you find any evidence president obama or anyone else in the white house asked the United States government to investigate thencandidate trump or his campaign . Mr. Horowitz we certainly didnt see any evidence in the fbis files or departments files, which is our jurisdiction. Sen. Feinstein you have a policy recommendation regarding the use of confidential human sources. I would like to ask a few questions about it. Your investigation found the use of confidential human sources was consistent with existing rules, correct . Mr. Horowitz correct. Sen. Feinstein the use of confidential human sources here was not solely to gather First Amendment protected information. Mr. Horowitz correct, and that is the standard currently in the rules. Sen. Feinstein and you found no evidence the decision to use confidential human sources was motivated by political bias, correct . Mr. Horowitz correct. Sen. Feinstein with regard to your policy recommendation, what if anything do you believe should be changed, and why . Mr. Horowitz so as i mentioned in my opening statement, i think we were surprised to learn and concerned to learn that in an investigation of any Political National party little campaign, sourcenfidential human usage could be approved by only a first level supervisor. Some were approved at the assistant director level, but they could have been approved at just the line supervisor level. For an investigation of a majorparty president ial campaign of either side, of any side, that was concerning to us, particularly since there was not a requirement that any department lawyer, whether in the National Security division, the criminal division, the deputy office, the attorney generals office, needed to be notified at any point in time. Sen. Feinstein did you give interviews about your investigation while it was ongoing . Mr. Horowitz myself . No, i do not do that. Sen. Feinstein did anyone on the i. G. Team . Mr. Horowitz no, and it would have been entirely inappropriate to do so. Sen. Feinstein so i would like to clear it up, what are the dangers of discussing an investigation that is ongoing . Mr. Horowitz i actually wrote, we wrote a 500 page report about that that we issued last year, and among other things criticized what occurred last year with regard to the handling that investigation. Ongoing investigations are, need to be protected from outside influence. You dont know as an investigator or should not conclude until you are done with the investigation, you should not be reaching your conclusion giving preliminary ideas, advice, guidance, statements can be misleading, and you should not be reaching final conclusions until you get to the end of the investigation. Sen. Feinstein there is an impression about two people, strzok and page. I want to ask. For the last two years, President Trump has relentlessly attacked former fbi officials as a way to undermine the investigation. For example, the president e wickedthat how can th witch hunt proceed when it was started, influenced and worked on by peter strzok and lisa page, who exchanged Text Messages critical of candidate trump . Your investigation found that while lisa page attended some meetings involving the opening of the investigation, she did not play a role in the decision to open cross fire hurricane, and also found that while strzok was directly involved in the decision to open crossfire hurricane, he was not the sole or even the highest type and level decisionmaker to any of those matters. That decision, as i understand it, was made by the fbi assistant director, as you indicated, and by consensus after multiple days of discussions and meetings. Most importantly, you found that the decision had a proper, factual basis, and that there is no evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced it. So, based on your investigation, personal political views expressed in Text Messages did not motivate the opening of the investigation of ties between the Trump Campaign advisors and russia, is that correct . Mr. Horowitz thats correct. Ultimately, we concluded those Text Messages, which we found were entirely inappropriate, did not ultimately play a role in the decision to open the investigation. Sen. Feinstein thank you. Your investigation also uncovered Text Messages other fbi employees, expressing support for candidate and President Trump, correct . Mr. Horowitz thats correct. Sen. Feinstein so fbi employees held personal political views both favorable and unfavorable toward the candidate at that time . Mr. Horowitz thats correct. As we note here, and we noted it in last years report, we did not find the Text Messages were inappropriate solely because people expressed a view as to which candidate they supported or did not support in an election. What concerned us, the Text Messages referenced in this connectionrt, is the between their views and their work on the investigation. Sen. Feinstein to conclude my questioning, what do you believe, with your long experience, are the most important points that this 400plus page report brings forward . Mr. Horowitz well, i think there were several, as you might expect in a 400pluspage report. I think as we outlined in the executive summary, first it was opened with the proper predicate, sufficient predication by the person who was not one of the textmessage persons, and was senior to those people. The confidential human source operations, while permitted by fbi policy, should give everyone pause as to whether that policy is sufficient to provide accountability over decisions. Finally, the fisa process here was not used appropriately, properly, and the rules were not followed. Sen. Feinstein that concludes my questioning. I just want to say thank you, and thank you to your staff. I am very grateful to the Inspector Generals office, year in, year out. Thank you. I would yield the balance of my time to senator lahey. Sen. Graham we have a vote at to getand we will try to senator grassley and maybe senator lahey, and take a break for lunch and come back in about 30 minutes. Leahy as senator graham , we haveut earlier worked on trying to put in some usaections in fisa, the freedom act and so on. But, the fbi accepted all of your findings, correct . Mr. Horowitz thats correct. Sen. Leahy that includes when you raise concerns about the use of fisa. Mr. Horowitz correct. Fiveleahy the investigations that you reviewed, the only application for a fisa warrant was with respect to carter page . Mr. Horowitz correct. Of the 17 errors, the carter page fisa investigation came after the investigation which became the special counsels investigation . Mr. Horowitz it occurred in october and later, not in august. En. Leahy so it came after report, how many pages in the Mueller Report referred to carter page . Mr. Horowitz i dont recall the exact number, but it was not a large number. Sen. Leahy i do know, because i have read it. Soven pages out of 448 pages, barely mentioned. Im not trying to minimize the fbi mistakes here, but keeping it in context. The fbis errors in carter pages case do not undermine the unanimous assessment that russians, and not ukraine, interfered in our election, correct . Mr. Horowitz we described in the report the information about russia, the conclusions about russias meddling in the 2016 election. The politicale of events that mr. Trump was having, he said, russia, if you are listening, take a look at this. The Trump Campaign seemed to welcome it. And of these errors, correct me if im wrong, minimize the legitimacy of the dozens of indictments and convictions that resulted from the special counsels russia investigation, is that correct . Mr. Horowitz we make very clear here that the errors we identify are concerning the carter page fisa and the people in that chain of command, and do not make any findings with any other parts of crossfire hurricane, a far broader investigation. Sen. Leahy the reason i mention, you dont want to because of these errors undermine the larger investigation, correct . Mr. Horowitz our review is not of the mueller investigation. Our review was of the fisa orders obtained and the opening of the investigation, and the additional question we got about mr. Ohrs activities and confidential human source use. Sen. Leahy and you found, you correctrviews, is it that you found no evidence the investigation was motivated by antitrump or political bias, correct . Mr. Horowitz we found no evidence the initiation of the investigation was motivated by political bias. The question gets more challenging, senator, when you get to the fisa, and you get to the attorneys actions for example in connection with the fisa. Don. Leahy why i raise that, in you conclude there was a legitimate basis to investigate ties between the Trump Campaign advisors and russia . Mr. Horowitz we concluded that the fbi had the predication to open it on july 31, and the subsequent subfiles that they opened about 10 days later or so. Sen. Leahy so that came from the trusted foreign ally . Mr. Horowitz correct. From the friendly Foreign Government. And if you find that in that the fbi complied with and even exceeded Current Department rules on who can authorize an investigation, who has to be notified . Mr. Horowitz they followed all the rules, with regard to that. Does this rebuke the claims made by some that there is a deep state involved . Mr. Horowitz it finds it was a properly predicated investigation based on the rules of the fbi. Sen. Leahy and did you find anything where the fbi planted spies in mr. Trumps campaign . Mr. Horowitz we found no use of confidential human sources, in placing them in the campaign or trying to put them in the campaign. You will get your 10 minutes. I just want to let senator grassley go. Grassley has anybody been charged or prosecuted . Mr. Horowitz on this matter i am handling . No one, i am aware of. Grassley did the Obama Administration or president obama else know about the counterintelligence investigation . Mr. Horowitz our authority was over the fbi. Sen. Grassley we referred Christopher Steele for potentially lying to the fbi. We told you i department and department that what the fbi told the court about the media context did not match with what he told the british court. Did the fbi ever ask him whether he was a source for the 2016 yahoo news article that cited . Estern intelligence sources if not, why not . Not haveitz they did a variety of explanations, they did not want to offend him or jeopardize their relationship with him. On october 11, the draft of the pfizer applications dating the fbi foreves steel was a source the yahoo news article, but it was taken out in the october 14 draft. Why did the fbi originally say that he was the source and what factual basis did they have to change that and tell the court that he was not a source . The initial application said that the fbi assessed that he was the direct source or was a direct source. Changed to the draft the direct opposite. They had no basis for the first statement, no evidence in their file. The point was, they had no evidence to support that. They flipped it, they had no evidence to support that either. That,s the kind of issue had someone been doing their job and followed up, they would have found that, had they bothered to ask, they might have found out which of the two versions was true. Chairman graham and i sent our appeal on january the fourth. According to your report, although the fbi already knew that the British Intelligence and fbi officials discussed the litigation with director comey, the statementgot in that litigation until we provided them. The fbi also never considered updating the court on these men. When didcourt the Court Learned about these contradictory statements about whether he did or did not have contact with the media, and did anyone in the fbi seemed concerned at all that it was not updating the court, that it was knowingly providing the court with incorrect and misleading information . The pfizer Court Learned about it in a letter sent june 2018, a year after the last pfizer authorization, when the Justice Department lawyers sent a letter informing them of new information that they had learned, including from the litigation that he had acknowledged that he was a direct contact for yahoo news in that story. Would you look at footnote 461 for me . It states that a former human and fbiontacted in field office in late july to report information from a colleague who runs an investigating firm, hired by two entities, as well as another named, to who was not explore donalds longstanding ties. Was that investigating firm, fusion gps, or did the dnc hire another firm to puddle antitrump information to obamas fbi. Mr. Horowitz i do not know definitively which it was, but i can follow up and get back to you on that. I will have to double check on that. Sen. Grassley would that be a case of privacy or something . Mr. Horowitz we ultimately figured out the answer to that question because it was any different field office with different people to interview. I am not sure how much we went down that road. Sen. Grassley i have been asking questions since december 2017 about what kind of things they provided to the Trump Campaign. The fbi told me its briefings to both campaigns were similar and that it was not aware of action that it took as a result. Chairman johnson and i wrote to the fbi two months ago and noted that Text Messages indicated that the fbi may have used defensive briefings not to warn the Trump Campaign but to investigate it. Question number one, would you agree that with respect to the defensive briefings, the Trump Campaigns we things were treated differently than those provided to the Clinton Campaign . It was not an fbi briefing if they went to an office of the director of national intelligence. Because it wast not a defensive briefing. It was an intelligence briefing and they were treated differently and that the agent wrote it up to the file and put the information in the file. Was forresult was one investigative purposes and the other was for the intelligence briefing. , thegrassley in this case agency at the Trump Campaign briefing documented statements and interaction of Michael Flynn and candidate trump for the fbi investigating files. Is it normal for the counterintelligence refers to document statements and interactions of individuals that they are briefing for investigating purposes . Mr. Horowitz it was documented in one and not the other, as he said. Onre is actually no policy it, but based on the current , idership and the response think it is pretty clear what he thinks and this should not have occurred. Did the fbi make any investigative use on the information garnered in the itsnse briefing to inform later interview with Michael Flynn . Mr. Horowitz that was certainly the stated purpose for the agent being present. Sen. Grassley lastly, campaigns placed trust in the fbi to provide honest assessments to the risk of foreign threats . How can the fbi repair that trust after abusing the breathing process . That theitz we think fbi has to clearly state what its purpose is. These briefings, per for companies when they are attacked and other systems, transition for transition purposes, there needs to be clear guidance so that they understand. Sen. Grassley according to your fbi thathey told the still reporting had gone to the Clinton Campaign november 2016. By january 11, key investigators knew the dossier was prepared in part for the dnc. 2017, it wasmarch brought me probably known by senior Justice Department officials that simpson was working for the democratic party. How many people in the fbi and doj knew that the steele dossier was Research Funded by the democrats . Who were they and did any of them approve information in the renewals . Side,rowitz on the fbi it is page 258 and forward. There were a number of people who knew. What challenging to know was known at the highest level of the fbi and when because of. He lack of any direct record there certainly was much information. Muche Justice Department, of the information was not known and one of the concerns and information, he was passing along this information to the fbi. That information was not being given back to the Justice Department, so the colleagues at the Justice Department were reviewing the findings and did not know that there colleague had passed along that information to the fbi. We will break for lunch and then we will come back and vote. I read an awful lot of. Eports in my years here am i correct that when the Justice Department or a component disagrees or has comments about a report, the general practice is to provide a written response to publish with the report. Is that correct . Mr. Horowitz that is correct. At reports looked filed. Not only the three dozen reports, but the Justice Department component. Many reports under your name involve the Justice Department committing more misconduct in your investigation . Mr. Horowitz i do not recall that happening before. Sen. Leahy none. That is why i find it very unusual that attorney general it did not going to the report. He just went to the Television Cameras to talk about it. There is a lot about the personal Text Messages involved in your 2018 report. Did not find pro trump messages for those who worked on the russia investigation, including one that was excellently written, where the agents were enthusiastically talking about trumps election and their desire to investigate the clinton investigation under President Trump. Mr. Horowitz that is in the report. I think it is potentially problematic, whether they are pro trump or pro clinton. I assume the fbi investigators can have strong views on politics, but the question is, does it impact their work . Mr. Horowitz while they should never be using government devices to hold political and our view, when we took the view last year, we laid it out and we were not referring people for performance failures simply because they expressed support or lack of support for certain candidates. Sen. Leahy there was one. Ccasion appropriately kept quiet about the trump russia investigation. The same cannot be said about the clinton administration. Appeared toi receive highly sensitive links from the fbi office, links that could likely contribute to director comeys brother public announcement rather public announcement. I asked director comey about the leak. Of the that the number giuliani, he actually bragged about talking about. What can you tell us about the leaks . We were very concerned about that. We put in charts showing the different contacts. This day ands to we are investigating those contacts. Couple public summaries about people that we found violated policy. We have other investigations ongoing. Summaries and it is proving to be very hard to prove the actual substance of the communication between the individuals, as you might guess, but we can prove the contacts and you need authorization if you are going to have certain contacts. Were your central findings involving the Trump Campaign is that correct . The opening of the investigation was not connected to the biased Text Messages. At the president s direction, the attorney general has been finding support for onnch theories to cast doubt the russia investigation. I am not clear. What legitimate Law Enforcement purpose it serves. How do we know that politics is driving the bob durham investigation . Mr. Horowitz i am not sure how anybody knows unless you do an someoneation or if looks through, as we did here, a million records and an exhaustive effort. Sen. Leahy but you would agree that they had to free of improper political motivation. Mr. Horowitz absolutely. 100 . Down, the be straight yellow line in the middle of the road on anything that you touched. You leahy doesnt concern that the attorney general is running around europe to find any theories that might cast doubt on any russia investigation . Mr. Horowitz you would have to ask the attorney general about those meetings. I do not know what those meetings were about. Concerned i am because normally they have a question or a disagreement with the Inspector General report by. Etting you know it would include any disagreements. When theyt investigated the politically motivated party during the bush administration. The Department Leaders abdicated the responsibility to ensure that decisions would be based on the law. Timeis case, for the first , they were not set by the attorney general, but instead given to the press. Is that correct . Mr. Horowitz i do not know a situation where we did not get those appendix to our report. Thank you for your comments. We will adjourn and recess until 1 00