Transcripts For CSPAN3 Hearing On Origins Of FBIs Russia Inquiry 20240713

The hears will come back to order, and i hope you had a little break. Are you all right, mr. Horowitz . If we do this right, we will be done by 4 30 and in time for multiple votes. Mr. Horowitz, thank you yand your professional staff for the work that you have done. This is one of the hardest jobs in government is to be a watchdog and to hold agencies as is important as the justice D T Department and the fbi accountable. I wanted you to know how much we appreciate your work and your teams work. And even though we are critical of the leadership of the fbi in the last administration, and the way they mishandled this Counter Intelligence investigation, i think that the rank and file agents in the fbi and the colleagues in the Intelligence Agency know that we are there and support this in the faith of the discharge of your duties. I happen to serve on both the Judiciary Committee and the Intelligence Committee and there is no ardent more supporter of the fbi and the intelligence agencies than i am. And so i believe that general hayden when he wrote his book about his experience at the cia, he had it right. It is called playing to the edge. Playing to the edge of your authorities and not over the line of your authority, but up to the edge in the interest of the National Security, but that is also going to make it important for us to root out illegalitys and the mendacities and the deception and the exercise of the authorities that are given to our Intelligence Community. And so, let me ask you a little bit about that. Because i cant think of anything more damaging to the Intelligence Community and the fbi and the doj than what you have uncovered in this 400 page report of and what we have seen here. It is really troubling. Can i ask you to the Foreign Surveillance intelligence court as you have pointed out considers the application of the foreign Intelligence Surveillance for a warrant from the fbi working with the National Security division at the department of justice, and do you believe that the court knew what you know now, that it would have ever issued the fisa warrant in the first place . We are careful not to predict what federal judges would do presented with the evidence and whether it would be sufficient basis to find probable cause. I know that they would not sign a warrant if they were told not all relevant information is included in it. Or if they were lied to. Certainly if they were lied to. And do you know if the court is currently considering this matter . Well, i know that the court based on the discussions with folks at nsd, National Security division, they have the report, and they have a followon letter from the department about this matter. Well, i hope they will not let this pass, because this misbehavior or the illegality of it this, i agree with senator graham, that this is the end of the authorities that congress has granted under the foreign intelligence Foreign Surveillance act which is damaging to our National Security. The foreign Intelligence Surveillance act including the word surveillance, obviously. So you cant surveil an american citizen for intelligence purposes except for under specialized and exacting circumstances. Would you agree with that . That is correct. And because the rights given to a u. S. Citizen under the u. S. Constitution are laid out in the bill of rights and among other places, and there is a more, and a higher standard with regard to getting a warrant, lets say to wiretap or the investigate an american citizen than there would be a foreign agent, correct . That is correct. There is particularly sensitive circumstances around surveilling a u. S. Person. So the whole exception here which authorized, and which the court authorized the surveillance of mr. Page was based on some proof or some indication or some suspicion that he was an agent of the foreign power, correct . Yes, they had to show the probable cause to show that he was an agent of a foreign power. But as you pointed out, they have incomplete, and misleading information in that process, agreed . The court got inaccurate and incomplete information. And what is the term spy . Well, the term we use in the report and i use is what is in the law, the foreign Intelligence Surveillance act. You dont like the vie knae vernacular . Well, i will stick to what we use, and what is in the law. Well, in my mind, it is not a change, but it is an act of Covert Intelligence gathering against a foreign power or agent of a foreign power. Let me ask you about the defensive briefing. And you have explained in response to senator grahams questions the difference between a Counter Intelligence investigation, and criminal investigation, and i believe that at some point in the last few years that loretta lynch, the former attorney general says that the defensive briefings were rue neen the Counter Intelligence investigations, and would you agree with that . I dont have enough experience to tell one way or another. I have heard that be said, but i dont have a reason you dont have any reason to disagree with that . No. So if they are routine and attorney general lynch is correct, the decision by mr. Prestap the head of the Counter Intelligence section of the fbi to not provide a Counter Intelligence briefing to candidate trump and his campaign would be unusual . If it is usual to not do it, then it is not unusual. And what is more unusual is the fact that when the director of National Intelligence went to provide what turned out to be a perfunctory briefing to the Trump Campaign lasted about 13 minutes as you indicated in the report that they had implanted into the group an agent, fbi agent that was part of the Investigative Team for cross fire hurricane is that correct . Yes, there is one fbi agent there, and they chose the agent from the Counter Intelligence investigation. So instead of the mission being to provide candidate trump and the campaign to arm them with information to prevent the russians from infiltrating their campaign, this briefing such as it was had a dual purpose. The agent it says on page 342 of your report actually prepared himself going through mock briefings headed by strzok and lisa page and the Counter Intelligence bureau chief . That is correct. And so this is not just a incidental sort of thing, and obviously, there were plans made for the agent to go in as part of this defensive briefing and perhaps get general flynn to inadvertently offer information that might be helpful to the fbi in their investigation. And as explained to us, it was dual purpose, one to see if anything was said in the briefing in response the briefing that would be useful for crossfire hurricane purposes immediately but also as the agents told us for purposes of a future interview of mr. Flynn which did in fact occur later. So mr. Flynn was currently the target . He was certainly of the three people there from the trump, for the Trump Campaign, the only one of the three that about whom, who was a subject of the fbi investigation at the time. And he wasnt told that he was under investigation or that the agent was there hoping to bait him into providing incriminatory information or, and the agent did not provide him any declaration or admonishment of his miranda right, correct . He was not told that there is a dual purpose to the briefing. Well, looks to me like director wray was so concerned about this that he as you have pointed out said that this is never going to happen again. Is that what you said. Yes, that is correct. So let me ask you, mr. Horowitz, are you familiar with the fact that director comey had a meeting with President Trump in january of 2017 to talk to him about the steele dossier . I am and we actually reference that in the report about his preparation and handling of the memos that came out of that meeting. Why should we believe that director comeys socalled defensive briefing if you want to call it that of the president in january of 2017 was anything more than an attempt to try to bait the president to providing incriminatory information that is useful to the fbi in the Counter Intelligence investigation or potentially some future criminal investigati investigation . I have no information one way or another to make a judgment on that, but as mentioned earlier one of the concerns of doing this here is that it leaves open the possibility that people might ask if it happened elsewhere. Well, it strikes me fraught with danger just like it was for general flynn for the director the go into the white house, the oval office and the white house to not tell the president that anything that he says can be used against him in an Ongoing Investigation, and potentially and including criminal charges, and the final thing that i would say is that i agree with the chairman. If this is going to happen to a president ial candidate or the president of the United States, what kind of protection do average american citizens have that their government wont array this vast power against them, and essentially ruin their lives . To me that is a profound concern as a result of the investigation. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and picking up on that, editorial comment. I have been joining senator leahy and senator lee for years to talking about this fisa court, and we have an ample court in this case and a lot of others n. 2002, the fisa court identified 75 cases in which it was misled by the fbi, and the internal review of the fbi dozens of inaccuracies provided to the fisa court, and the list is on and on and so lets have a fulsome conversation after this about the future of the fisa court and the representations to it if we can. And thank you for being here, mr. Horowitz, and thank you for answering questions. The chairman gave a characteristic, flowery opening that went on for some 40 minutes and produced lengthy emails from peter strzok and lisa page that demonstrated hostilities against candidate trump and he said that these were the people in charge. When i am reading the summaries of the findings, you did not find either of them to be in charge, did you . On this investigation, we did not. Okay. When it is coming to expletives on page 339 of the report found some agents at the fbi who had exactly opposite political viewpoint, and very positive toward candidate trump in early open use of expletives to demonstrate that. They were not part of the Crossfire Hurricane Team, but they were were interacting. So we dont believe that anybody in this capacity of the lifechanging capacity every single day should be so politically biased as to call into question their values and their character. That is correct. And i made this point last year when this issue came up. Individuals at the Justice Department and the fbi are allowed to have their political views, and they are allowed the be voters and allowed the be engaged citizens, and they should be, but they cant tie their personal views to their investigative acts. That is one of the things that you shared with director wray. Correct. All right. Also, chairman made a point early on of talking about the fact that the Trump Campaign was not notified of this Ongoing Investigation until a much later date after it had been initiated. And i would say that you should be careful of what you wish for. Because those who are looking at the james comey october 2008 public declaration of Hillary Clinton to be influencing the ii election, and it is good to know, but you can know that as more people become to know it, it is more public knowledge, and is that an issue . Look, we wrote last years report of that concern of what director comey did in that regard and you want to make sure that only the people who need to know it, know it. And so the chairmans insinuation that the bias of this and others that against donald trump that he believes is manifest in many of the things that followed. And from our side of the table, we can have bias that includes comeys Public Statement before the election that had in many of our points of view determinative outcome. Let me go back to the irrepressible mayor Rudy Giuliani. And in the campaign, he was then a campaign surrogate and bragged to having access to the investigation of Hillary Clintons emails and he teased in october of 2016 that a surprise was coming and in november 4th after director comey reopened the investigation, giuliani said, quote, i expected this. Did i hear about it . You are darn right i heard about it the mayor said. How can we be dealing with those kinds of statements that long ago and not have resolution as to whether he was just bluffing or if in fact he had moles in that new york office . If i remember right, one of comeys rationals for the public announcement is that i could not do it through the new york office, because it leaks like the sieve, and is there any investigation of this . Or no investigation of this . As i mentioned last year when we we are leased the report on the clinton email that we were looking at and we are looking at still that question. And the challenge of that investigation as i mentioned back then and i will mention it again is proving who spoke to whom and when based on records of the fbi. And understanding that theres rarely going to be substantive information that we will get for example from the toll records or others, but we will find the context, and we are trying to follow up, and continuing to do that and we have issued two reports so far about the findings that we had of the leaks and the misconduct. And we have investigations ongoing. Mr. Giuliani now professes to be President Trumps lawyer and occasionally the president acknowledges that and sometimes he doesnt. Are there any concerns that mr. Giuliani may be continuing to improperly obtain information from Law Enforcement by personnel who are not authorized to provide it . I will not speak to what we have learned about the Ongoing Investigation, and i am not investigating matters related to the ongoing ukraine issues that i think that you are ref eeren g referencing. Let me ask if i can on the question of the problems within this case particularly as they relate to the treatment of individuals who are engaged in it. And i am thinking particularly of the ongoing questions about whether or not one particular individual was treated fairly here. And is it your conclusion that he was not a, and ms. Page was not a russian agent or should say did not have important context that were not in the best interests of the United States with the russian leadership . I am not in the position to assess that. What i can assess is looking at the evidence that the fbi pult f forward to the fisa court. A significant number of evidence was not supporting that case, and that was told to the lawyers who are the gatekeepers and have to be able to know that information for the decision, and they are the experts and not me. Can we speak to the steele dossier in this case. You had a definitive statement about what impact that steele file had on the inniitiation of that investigation, and what is your conclusion . In terms of the initiation of the impact, it was no impact, because it was not known to the team when they opened it. So it has been concluded no evidenced of the political influence for the opening of this crossfire hurricane investigation . Correct. And so on this fisa reform issue, and i will get back to that later, and one thing that is interesting here, and senator lee is not with us at this moment, but he has introduced a bill which i am cosponsoring which would give the Inspector Generals Office in this circumstance the authority to investigate attorneys in the department. Right now that is not allowed under the law, is it . That is correct. It is not, and thank you for cosponsoring the bill as have several other members of the committee. It seems to be obvious. Do you know what the areas behind their being separate and not subject to this investigation . It is a legacy of history back in 1988 when the i. G. Was created at justice, the compromise was that attorneys would be carved out, and by the way, so was the fbi and the dea and we would have jurisdiction over everybody else. After the Aldridge Ames spy scandal, attorney general scowcroft changed that, and then it was codified, but the attorneys were still carved out as the only i. G. Not to review the conduct of all of the employees in the organization including the attorneys. And attorney general ashcroft was authorized to give you that kind of option . As the statute as it existed, it did, but the statutory change is under way. I hope you will consider that, mr. Chairman. Has anybody been charged with working with the russians illegally working with the russians that were part of the Trump Campaign that you know of . Not that i know of. Okay. Mr. Lee. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. I find the conclusion that some have raised at your report, mr. Horowitz, that somehow you exonerate the fbi in this matter to be crazy. I absolutely, crazy. To the point that it makes me think that those who are making this argument are reading the same report that we are talking about today. Perhaps it is a different report. There is no planet on which i think that this report indicates that things were okay within the fbi. In connection with this investigation and they most certainly were not, and yet stunningly former director jim comey took to the pages of the Washington Post to declare that this report, your report, showed that quote the fbi upheld the American People in accordance to the constitution, and i find that stunning that he would reach this conclusion. This is nonsense. I dont care where you fit on the political spectrum, if you are a politician or if you are a nonpolitician. If you are a liberal or a conservative or a republican or a democrat, regardless of your age, your views, you should be deeply concerned about whats in your report, mr. Horowitz. This report is a scathing indictment of the fbi, of the agents that were involved, and i want to be clear about that, because the fbi is an institution that has a long history of respect in this country. As a former federal prosecutor, i found that most of the people in the fbi to be of utmost integrity and thoroughness, and that is why i am so concerned about the report and the findings and the facts stated therein, because this is damaging to it. And there is a lot of good from the country of not only the fbi to be good, but understood to be good. The behavior outlined in your report is at a minimum negligent. I actually would say so reckless so that it calls into question the legitimacy of the entire fisa program. I dont say that lightly, but say this as someone who has long questioned the fisa program, and how it could be effused, but this is really pushing us over the edge, and i will get back to that in a minute. The report concludes way too generously in my view that there was not essential misconduct on the case agents who were involved in investigating the Trump Campaign, but the report goes on the call the conduct of the agents and the supervisors involved to be quote serious performance failures which you have noted were failures for which you did not receive a satisfactory explanation . That is correct. And the serious performance failures. Failures without any type of satisfactory explanation, and this is the failure that jim comey irresponsibly and considers this to be a fulfilled mission, and mission that protects the Constitutional Rights of the American People. I think not. This is what the former head of the fbi considers protecting the American People and upholding the constitution. I just cant understand it. It is simply not good enough. Maybe it is good enough for mr. Comey, but it is not good enough for the American People. Every american should be terrified by this report. The fbi team that investigated the Trump Campaign was as has been pointed out hand picked and after all it couldnt have and wouldnt, and wasnt the case that it was any investigators to have investigated any president ial campaign, and especially the president ial campaign of one of two Major Party Nominees for what was acknowledged in the report to have been one of the most sensitive fbi investigations. And these these agents wither to be the best of the best. And he is to be of the highest character and professionalialsmf all americans. You see the privacy is noted a ottings wiat odds with the security, because we cannot be secure unless the privacy is guaranteed. And we certainly cant be secure in the republican form of government if after all the republican form of imperiled by people who are changing the apparatus that our government has for security and privacy. So one, either the agencies used the power of the federal government to wage a political war against a president ial candidate they despised or two, the agents were so incompetent that they allowed a paid foreign political operative to weaponize the fisa program into a spying operation on the residential rival political campaign. I am not sure about you, but which is worse, but i am sure that neither conclusion is acceptable. They are both horrifying for slightly different reasons. I am not sure that there is a substantive distinction of the two of them. And i am not sure that one of them can conclude or if it is possible to conclude that the bias evidence and communications between the investigators was not at least a part of it. The fact that there was a not a causal connection between them, and a sine nonquon is beside the point. The fact is that these agents made the biases clear, and they went after someone in part because they did not like his candidacy, and that is inexcusable. The report in the fbis abuse, i believe it is longstanding abuse and it is inevitable abuse of fisa and the fisa court to surveillance americ surveil american citizens should in a sense not be of a tremendous surprise to us. James madison warned us against this very kind of thing in federalist 51 when he said that if men were angels they would not need a government, and if we needed access to angels to govern us, we would not need government. But alas, we are not angels and we dont have access to angels to govern us, so we have to have auxiliary precautions and checks and balances to make sure that no one person or no one entity gets too much power and added to the checks and balances, we have substantive limitations like the Fourth Amendment and things there to protect us. I believe for some time as has been noted earlier in the hearing and i have teamed up with people at the opposite end of the political ideological spectrum that fisa carries wit an unaccessible risk of abuse. That is why i have teamed up with senator pat leahy in the nine years in the senate and the senate Judiciary Committee, because i believe these programs are subject to abuse. I have been warning for years that inevitably these would result in abuse and it is not if, but when. And how soon will government officials get caught doing it. Actually surprising me in some ways that it took us this long to find an instance where you get caught, but then again, that is what happens. When you are taking a standard that is malleable, that requires virtually no public accountabili accountability, and you render all but a small number of Intelligence Committee members in the house and the senate and you render all other citizens other than them, and the Intel Community itself, ineligible to review their work, and then you make it possible for them to gather information, this kind of thing is going to happen, of course. It is never not going to happen. And that scares know death. Now, Inspector General horowitz, you have stated several times today, both in the Opening Statement and in response to questions that you did not find documentary testimonial evidence of bias that influenced the fbis decision to conduct these operations. But mr. Horowitz, is not the lack of evidence that you are talking about, itself, evidence of bias . Isnt the lack of evidence on bias, evidence that we really should take as bias . In any event it ist certainly not itself that bias occurred, isnt that correct . As to the opening, which is in a different place than the fisa issues that you have identified and i talked about earlier, i think it is two different situations. On the fisa side, we found as you noted a lack of the documentary evidence of intentionality, and we noted the lack of satisfaction explanation, and in fact, leave open for the reasons that you indicated it is unclear what the motivations were. On the one hand gross incompetence and negligence and on the other hand intentionality, and somewhere in between and with the evidence that we had, we were not able to make that conclusion, but we are not ruling it out. So the lack of evidence is not evidence that there is no bias . I am solely basing it, correct, on the actual evidence that we have. Okay. Thank you very much. But mr. Horowitz, you did make a finding on that, did you not . Page 14 of the executive summary where you have ascribed this to management and supervisory failures that were not specific to this case, but that were potentially endemic. Is that not correct . Ek iim sorry which side . You said that there were a hand picked team that raised questions to raise the fbis chain of command and the supervision of the fisa process. Correct. You go on the describe it as a failure of the managers and the supervisors. Right. And you go on the say that your remedy is an oig audit not only of this case, and other cases that have nothing to do with the Trump Campaign and nothing to do with politic, and so you make a finding to this that it is a failure of management and supervision that could well go beyond this particular case . Correct, but not just managers and supervisors, obviously. All of the line people. Serious errors . Very serious errors. But you make no findings that this is a deep state conspiracy or the political conspiracy or any such motivation . We make no mind finding, and we explain in there that we did not have documentary or other intelligence that points it out. We point out we did not have satisfaction explanations, and from there i cannot draw conclusions. So other than what you are going with is a failure of management and supervision over this process that needs to be repaired. From top to bottom. And what is the time line on the attorney general getting notice of this report, and when he first saw this and when he credited this, and he said that your investigation is a credit to the department of justice . Well, we first provided the draft report for classification marking purposes at the beginning of september, and the end of august and beginning of september. So he and his team have had it well over a month. Yes, and then we got it back with them with the markings and we did the normal process with the classified we view, and then produced it back in november for the factual accuracy. And the director of the fbi would have seen that during that time frame . Same exact time frame. Yes. And he complimented you on the thoroughness and said he accepted the reports findings with plenty of time to review it . Correct. And then we get to mr. Durham. Did mr. Durham have access to the report in the same period of time . No, we did not give it to him in the end of august and september. Precisely, because it was for classification purposes, and he had no reason to see it. We were very careful as to who could see it and who couldnt. Yep. And the department keeps lists of who could and could not. And he was not on the list. Not on the list. And we provided it to him in november as part of the factual accuracy. November when, do you remember . I could check, but it was probably roughly midnovember. So. Are you familiar with what he is undertaking at all . I would say some, but i am not completely familiar with it. He notes that he does not agree with some of the reports conclusions as to the predication and how the fbi case was open, and what information do you think that he has access to that you did not have access to . I have no idea. When you look at director wray, he has provided broad access to all of the information and including highly sensitive material and he accepts that you are, the crossfire hurricane investigation was done with a purpts and predication. And i am trying to figure out where in the world of evidence exists about predication that you didnt have access to and that fbi director wray would not have had access to, and where could john durham be going for information that is outside of the scope of what you have access to or what fbi director wray has access to . I dont know, and you would have to ask the attorney general or mr. Durham. Hypothetically, some area of evidence that you are aware of that you did not get access to . We are not. We have a million records. We asked the fbi for all of the materials in the possession and including from other agencies. In the grand jury i have no idea, and i couldnt say going overseas to debrief foreign interests . I have no idea. You would have to talk to him. Okay. The predication involves a threshold, does it not . Correct. It is for opening an investigation. And when you have hit the predication threshold, more evidence doesnt, and as long as the evidence is adequate, more evidence does not take it away, correct . Correct. So i am trying to figure out if he has more evidence that you didnt have, that the predication is more than adequate. Wow would have to ask him. You cannot think of a way to get there, can you . As i said earlier, we stand by our findings. And so, you described serious performance failures in the fisa process and those are likely to lead to disciplinary action or the sanctions by the court. Or at least be considered for those things, correct . Those are certainly two of the options, yes. And in the process, those individuals will have a chance to defend themselves as due process involved . We are not the ajude kays or the and this is adjudicator, because we are not involved in that process. So we may find out more as the process goes forward in that context . You might. And looking at the intelligence briefing and at the time of the intelligence briefing, what did the fbi know about how far russian interests had penetrated into the Trump Campaign . I dont know as i sit here the level and the extent of the fbis knowledge. I know that we were looking at the origins of the crossfire hurricane investigation. But they clearly now it was going on . Yes. And they knew about carter page. Yes. And the concerns about carter page, and he was associated with the Trump Campaign. Yes. Ed and they knew about the investigations of Michael Flynn at the time. Correct. Did they know about the trump tower meeting two months before the report with the russian agents . I dont know one way or another. Okay. And going into it, it would be reasonable, wouldnt it to expect that the fbi did not then know how far russian penetration into the Trump Campaign went . I have no idea at what stage the investigation was at, at that point in time, and i have no reason to doubt what you are saying, but i dont know independently. No way to rule out that people present at the intelligence briefing on behalf of the Trump Campaign might have been actually involved in the russian operation. I have no knowledge of that, and all i know as to that is that they had the open investigation on mr. Flynn. Soy that could not rule out when he was actually in the briefing . And he was a potential participant in the matter that he was looking into. Yes, and crossfire hurricane is bigger than the pieces that we were looking at so i dont know what the fbi was looking at into the time other than. And so, crossfire hurricane agent into the intelligence briefing of the Trump Campaign might have been overaggressive for the fbi to be in that intelligence briefing would be perfectly appropriate though, correct . Perfectly appropriate for them to be in there and that is the debate that went on internally for the fbi of what to do and they did not discuss it with the department the appropriateness of it or the dni. And there is no reason that the fbi should have been in that briefing . They should have been in there for intelligence purposes. And it also would have been perfectly appropriate for a crossfire hurricane agent to have debriefed the fbi agent present at the intelligence briefing to see if Michael Flynn had sent anything relevant to the investigation or the anybody else for that matter, because it was information that is potentially relevant to the investigation, is it not . Depending what occurred there, you could foresee a hypothetical, but it is raising serious policy questions that frankly the fbi director needs to sort through and understand with the leadership at the department, because that briefing and those briefings are for purposes of protecting campaigns and to allow transition tos to occur and it was an unusual circumstance that the participant in the briefing on the part of the Trump Campaign was the subject of an fbi investigation. I agree, but it is significant policy so we should not draw the conclusion that there is no way that the fbi should ever be given access to evidence that arises in the context of an intelligence briefing related to Counter Intelligence . Th and that is up to director wray to sort through that. My time has expired, and thank you. Thank you. Senator cruz, about 30 seconds here. In the january meeting here with the primary subsource and the russian guy who provided steele with all of the information, wasnt there a department of justice official there at that meeting . Yes, let me clarify that. The people present were the primary subsource and his lawyer, and two fbi cross fire hurricane people, and for parts of the interview lawyers for the National Security division, and they were there not knowing the background necessarily, but they were there because the primary subsource had a lawyer, and so he wanted a lawyer there in case there were other issues so we were beating on the fbi unnecessarily, because the department of justice was also in the room. The reason that the reason that this is here is because there is a number of instances where the people are giving the drivebyes. I got you. And in the government, you get a driveby, and you are tagged with something, and so that is our concern. I got you. I got you. And so from page 341, the fbis mr. Baker pulled the i. G. And also the report quoted as saying that the agent in that investigate tiff briefing was not there to induce anybody to say anything or undercover operation or present a statement. Fair enough. Senator cruz. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Horowitz, thank you for being here, and i wanted to start for thanking not only you and the men and women of the team who are gathered here. The work that you is done in respect to the investigative Generals Office is incredible. Looking at the report, and 438page report lays out what i consider to be a stunning indictment of the fbi and the department of justice. And so i will say that the department of justice and the fbi for a number of decades have had a number of honored and principled individuals with the fidelity to the rule of law, and this indictment, and im an alumnus of the department of justice and this pattern of facts makes me angry and anybody else who expect ps Law Enforcement to be nonpartisan and faithful to the law should be angry as well. The press has focused on your specific conclusion that you did not find evidence of political bias. That is a judgment that you have, and i disagree with that judgment, but i think that judgment is in many ways the least significant part of the report. The facts that are in this report need to be understood and deeply chilling to anyone who understands the facts in this report, and then people can draw the inference as to why that pattern of abuse occurred. Do you agree with that . What he said . I think that everybody, the purpose of the report is to lay out the facts for the public and everybody can debate and decide what they think of this information. I absolutely agree. So this 434page report outlines 17 major areas of errors misstatements that were made by the fbi or doj in securing fisa warrants. A number of them are deeply, deeply troubling. These are not typos. These are not small errors, these are grotesque abuses of power. The primary sub source and the first error you note in the second, third and fourth application for the fisa warrant is that the primary sub source reporting raised serious questions about the accuracy of the steele dossier which we know was a bunch of malarky and that the fisa court was not informed of that. Lets get specifically. The basis of this steele report was whats referred to in your report as the firearm sub source. That was the principle basis and the fbi interviewed that primary subsource three times in january, march and may of 2017. Thats the basis of this dossier. What did the primary subsource say, as the report says, the interviews with the subsource raised significant questions about the reliability of the steele reporting. What did the subsource say specifically as your report goes on to say . It says steele misstated or exaggerated multiple sections of the reporting. It says that portions of it, particularly the more salacious portions. Reporter were based on rumor and speculation. It came with friends over beers and statements that were made in, quote, jest. And the primary sub source says to take the other subsources, quote, with a grain of salt. The fbi had that information. Knew that the basis of this dossier was saying its unreliable and what did the fbi and doj do . In renewal application, the fbi advised the court, quote, the fbi found the russianbased subsource to be truthful and cooperative with zero revisions. You note that as the most significant misstatement and that is going in front of a court of law, relying on facts that you know are unreliable without any basis. That was the number one. The number two major error in the applications was omitting carter pages prior relationship. We now have evidence that carter page functioned as a source for a United States Intelligence Agency. Thats a pretty darn important fact. If youre telling the fisa court, hey, the fact that this guy, carter page, who i dont know, i dont know this guy, but the fact hes talking to russians, really suspicious, the fact that hes serving as a source of u. S. Intelligence agents is relevant to why hes talking to russians. We have lots of sources who are talking to bad guys and when you dont tell the court that, youre deceiving the court. But its were than just deceiving the court because, as the oig report details, an assistant general counsel in the fbi altered an email, fabricated evidence, and reading from the report, specifically the words and not a source had been inserted into the email. That email then was sent onto the officials responsible for making the decision to go forward and as the report said, let me read on page 256 of the oig report the final paragraph, consistent with the act of 1978 and following the discovery that the attorney had altered the email that he sent to the supervising agent who thereafter relied on it to swear out the final fisa application. So the men and women at home need to know whats happening. A lawyer at the fbi creates fraudulent evidence, alters an email, that is used for the basis of a sworn statement to the court that the court relies on. Am i stating that accurately . Thats correct. Thats what occurred. You have worked in Law Enforcement a long time. Is the pattern of a department of justice employee altering evidence and submitting fraudulent evidence, is that typical . I have not seen an alteration of an email end up impacting a Court Document like this. And in any ordinary circumstance, if a private citizen did this, fabricated evidence, and by the way, what he inserted was not just slightly wrong. It was 180degrees opposite what the evidence said. The Intelligence Agency said this guy is a source and he inserted this guy is not a source. If a private citizen did that in any Law Enforcement investigation, if they fabricated evidence and reversed what it said, in your experience, would that private citizen be prosecuted for fabricating evidence, be prosecuted for obstruction of justice, be prosecuted for perjury . They certainly would be considered for that if there was an intentional effort to deceive the court. On this one, im going to defer because as we noted here in the sentence, you indicated, we referred that over to the attorney general and the fbi director for handling. Third major omission that the department of justice and the fbi did not tell the court is that this entire operation was funded by the dnc, it was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and by democrats. This was the most Effective Research dump in history because the department of justice and fbi were perfectly happy to be hatchetmen for this research dump. Throughout every one of the filings, doj and the fbi didnt inform the fisa court that this was being paid for by the dnc and the Hillary Clinton campaign, is that right . Thats not in any of the fisa applications. They didnt tell the court that. And its not like doj didnt know. Indeed one of the Senior Department of justice officials, bruce ohr, his wife worked at fusion gps, the Research Company being paid by the dnc, and he became the principle liaison with steele without telling anyone at the department of justice that he was essentially working on behalf of the Clinton Campaign. By the way, several democrats, its interesting seeing Democratic Senators wanting to defend this abuse of power. Several senators said, the fbi didnt play spies in the Trump Campaign. Senator leahy said something similar. That may be true, not spies in the Trump Campaign. But reading from your report and page 4 of the executive summary, your report says thereafter the Crossfire Hurricane Team used the techniques including confidential human sources to interact and record multiple conversations with page and pop do las as well as on one occasion with a highlevel Trump Campaign official who was not the subject of the investigation. They didnt play spies in the campaign, but they sent spies to record senior members of the campaign in the middle of a president ial campaign when that candidate was the nominee for the other major party to the opposing party to the one in party, is that right . They sent confidential human sources in to do those. Did anyone at doj who at doj knew about this . Did the attorney general know about this . Did the white house know about this . Based on what we found, nobody had been told in advance. They did not the only evidence that somebody knew were the line attorneys in the National Security division when they were told very selective portions of what had occurred. Nobody knew beforehand. And that was one of the most concerning things here was that Nobody Needed to be told. And i can tell you from my time at the department of justice and from my time in Law Enforcement, any responsible leader when hearing that youre talking about sending in spies and sending in a wiretap on any president ial nominee should say what in the hell are we doing. The people up the chain who are saying we didnt know, if you had responsible leadership theres no more important decision than you make. When i was at doj if someone said lets tap Hillary Clinton or bill clinton or john kerry, the people in there would have said what in the hell are you talking about. This wasnt jason borne. This was beavis and butthead. I want to tone things down here a little bit. I want to express my gratitude for the thousands of men and women who work on the front line with the fbi. I come from a background as a prosecutor and our local Law Enforcement work with the fbi every day in our local office in minnesota and then in the senate, ive had the privilege to work with many, many people in the fbi. And i think the Inspector Generals job is incredibly important. He keeps everyone honest. But i do think its important for those agents and for those in Law Enforcement that are watching today that people understand there are people up here that understood that youre simply doing your jobs which i think is basically, with some suggestions and recommendations for change, what the Inspector General found in this report. Before i start my questions, i think its important to put this discussion in context with what happened in the 2016 election which is why we are here today. It is now undisputed by our intelligence agencies that russia invaded our democracy not with bombs or jets or tanks, but with a sophisticated cybermission to undermine the underpinnings of our very democracy. A democracy that hundreds of thousands of men and women have lost their lives on the battlefield defending both our democracy and democracies aboard. A democracy that four little girls innocence at the height of the Civil Rights Movement lost their lives in a church in birmingham, alabama, because people were trying to hold on to that democracy and make sure that it was extended to people in this country. So lets remember why were here today. Lets remember the words of dan coats, the former director of the national Intelligence Agency who served in the senate, well respected, by colleagues on both sides of the aisle. He said that in fact russia has been emboldened to do this again. And i did appreciate senator grahams words that he made clear that it was not ukraine that invaded this election, it was russia. And it was the words of fiona hill and the impeachment hearings over in the house that i thought were important to remember. She said anyone that is repeating this lie is basically peddling in russian propaganda. So lets remember that this is not about one election or one party. It is about our democracy. What can we do . We can be honest and we can stop making political hay out of this and take some actions that would protect our election in 2020. And that includes finishing the work that we have started to pass not only the money, which i appreciate, to help states to secure our elections, but to also get in place requirements to push those states that dont have backup paper ballots, to get those backup paper ballots and make sure we have audits and make sure we have better communication between federal and state authorities to do something about the propaganda, by actually moving forward on the bill that senator mccain and i had and that senator graham and i now have, the honest ads act, which requires those social Media Companies and i have absolutely no idea why we dont do that, to play by the same rules of the road for paid political ads which would greatly help us, but not completely, but greatly help us with this propaganda problem. Here we go. You wrote this report, inspector, after interviewing more than 100 witnesses and reviewing over 1 million documents, is that right . Thats correct. And under department guidelines, an investigation has an authorized purpose if it is open to detect, obtain information about or prevent or protect against federal crimes or threats to the National Security or to collect foreign intelligence. You found that the investigation at issue today was open to determine whether People Associated with the Trump Campaign were coordinating with the russian government, is that right . That is the reason the fbi provided. And, again, to be clear, you did not find that the fbi acted improperly when it opened the Counter Intelligence investigation that you reviewed in writing in this report. Thats correct. The departments guidelines also require that a decision to open investigation is supported by allegations, reports, facts or circumstances that indicate the possibility of criminal activity or a National Security threat. You found that the fbis investigation was predicated on a report from a friendly Foreign Government that heard that the Trump Campaign had received some kind of suggestion that russia could help them by releasing information that was damaging to Hillary Clinton, is that right . Thats correct. As a former prosecutor, i know that it is critical that the fbi is able to take an action like it did here to investigate threats to our National Security. Do you think that interference in our elections by a Foreign Government constitutes a National Security threat . Yes, i do. Okay. Does anything in your report call into question the finding in the special counsels report that the russian government interfered in the 2016 president ial election in a sweeping and systemic fashion . No, it doesnt. We cite the special counsels report here laying out all the different reports that have been released on this issue. Does anything in your report call into question chairman burrs statement that, quote, russia is waging an information warfare. No, it doesnt. Does anything in your report report that interference is ongoing and its interference in the 2018 midterms were a dress rehearsal for the 2020 elections . No, it doesnt. Does anything in your report call into question the finding in the special counsels report that, quote, the russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump Presidency and worked to secure that outcome . We dont take issue with any part of the special counsels report, no. Okay. Did you find any evidence that political bias or other improper consideration affected the fbis decision to open the investigation into George Papadopoulos . No, we dont. Did you find any evidence that political bias or other improper considerations affected the decision to open the investigation into Paul Manafort . No we dont. Did you find any evidence of political bias affected the decision to open the investigation into Michael Flynn . We did not. Did you find any investigation of political bias or other improper considerations affected the decision to open the investigation into carter page . No evidence. Did your report uncover systemic political bias at the fbi . As to what we looked at in the openings, we did not find documentary testimonial evidence to support a finding of bias. Can you comment on why it is critical that the American People have confidence in the rule of law and the independence of the Justice Department . Absolutely. I also was a former prosecutor previously. I did public Corruption Cases in the Southern District of new york and the whole foundation of the Justice Department and Law Enforcement on the federal level and at the state and local level is apolitical, nonpolitical decisionmaking made by prosecutors and agents working together to protect communities. Very good. I want to follow up on your discussion on the issue you briefly discussed, whistleblowers, with senator feinstein because its so important and i know that senator grassley cares a lot about this issue. Can you speak generally to how often in your career information provided to whistleblowers had proved important and led to uncover wrongdoing . I will speak to my experience in the seven years as ig, as in the first instance, from the getgo, fast and furious, critical that the agents came forward there. We found numerous instances in our audits with whistleblowers coming forward and reporting evidence. And ill add going back 30 years to my career as a prosecutor in new york doing police Corruption Cases, we had an incredibly brave and Courageous Police officer who saw corruption in his midst and came forward and reported it and allowed us to make a very substantial Police Corruption case that would have continued but for that courageous officer. Thank you very much. Thats really helpful. Last, after your report was released on monday, attorney general barr stated his opinion that the fbi launched an intrusive investigation of a u. S. President ial campaign on the thinnest of suspicions. When the fbi decided to open its investigations, a u. S. Intelligence committee was aware of russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 election, is that correct . Im not sure what the Intelligence Committee knew at the time. It was in that context that the fbi received information, im just going to lets move forward. I understand your answer. The fbi received information from a Foreign Government which we know from reports came from an australian diplomat. They reported that a Trump Campaign official suggested that the Trump Campaign had received some kind of suggestion from russia that would assist the campaign by releasing information that would be damaging to Hillary Clintons campaign, thats correct . Thats correct. Your report also quoted then chief of the National Security division who said that it would have been a, quote, 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 whats going on, is that right . Thats correct. In light of all of that that was occurring at that time, do you agree with attorney general barr that the investigation was predicated on the thinnest of suspicions . Well, im not going to get into a comparison on his view. Hes free to have his opinion. We have our finding and as i said earlier, i stand by our conclusion. And your conclusion, again, is that it was sufficient predication to open the investigation based on the low threshold required by department and fbi policy. Thank you very much. Thank you. Just we talked a lot about page just briefly about George Papadopoulos. I dont want anybody to believe that anyone has been convicted of being an agent of the russians. Has anyone in association with the Trump Campaign been charged in a crime of colluding the russians. Not that i know as i acsit here. Mr. George papadopoulos was being surveilled by the fbi . Yes. They considered but did not proceed to seek a fisa application. He was being wiretapped and he didnt know it. He was being an undercover operation and having a wire hes talking to somebody thats got a wire. Right. I just want to be careful. Okay. A wire, you think of a court order trust me. This was done because they can do it. Correct. They can do it. They dont have to get anybodys permission. They need the supervisory approval within the bureau. I want you to know what George Papadopoulos said when he didnt know he was being wiretapped. We dont want to work with the russians, basically, im summarizing here. That would be treason. Senator sasse. Thank you for being here and to all of your team. Thank you to all of you and rows one and two as well. There are a number of things that are really troubling, but some of them have been unpacked pretty fully so far. Im going to pick up some loose ends. Bruce ohr, who is he and whats his role at the department and lets ask some questions about the bizarre pathway by which he became involved in the investigation . At the time of these events, he was an associate Deputy Attorney general and the head of the organized Crime Task Force working out of the Deputy Attorney Generals Office. The organized crime and during Enforcement Task force and thats connected to election interference by the russians how . It is not. What the hell is he doing here . That was precisely the concern that we lay out here. He had no role in any of the election interference matters. We have a bunch of people in the media who wanted to read this and they wanted to have a predetermined answer for exactly how to interpret each piece of this. As the chairman began today, he said, you know, predicate of investigation, appropriate, but some minor mistakes and errors were made. Youve outlined in this 434page report, 17 significant errors in this investigation. Bruce ohr who has a very significant senior role, the officer of the Deputy Attorney general, has primary oversight of all Law Enforcement agencies in america. So if youre in the fbi and you might make a mistake in your investigation, the people youd be in trouble with normally are in the Department Attorney Generals Office. And heres a guy in the Deputy Attorney Generals Office who ultimately gets involved in this investigation and i think its pretty important to recognize, we have a massive failure if a guy from odag who should be doing oversight on this case, if he were going to get involved in this, he should be checking the work of the people who were doing the work and there are a bunch of department protocols and provisions that were violated throughout this. But bruce ohr, he ultimately decides to get extra information out of Christopher Steele after Christopher Steele or his employer, fusion gps, had been cut off by the fbi. Why did the fbi decide to no longer listen to Christopher Steele . He was closed in november of 2016 after the fbi learned of his disclosure to mother jones magazine that he had been worked with the fbi previously. And we know from the evidence that senator cruz went through there were a bunch of subsources that Christopher Steele was summarizing and they were believing he might be a credible guy and they realized that this is a bunch of bs and his sub sources are saying i said some of this in jest and some of it is stuff i overheard in a bar. And so the fbi decides reasonably that mr. Steeles information isnt credible, right, so they cut him off . That isnt what caused them to caught them off. They learned he talked to the press and mother jones magazine. They had that other information and didnt tell anybody about it. So youre disagrees with me only to say the problems with mr. Steele are twice as bad as i summarized . Im just saying that isnt why they cut him off. Thats the concern is that so then bruce ohr, who doesnt have any responsibilities in this area decides hell insert himself in the investigation and get Additional Information from or about Christopher Steele and the people who are funding Christopher Steele. Who is bruce ohr married to . Nellie ohr at the time he started interacting in november 2016 with steele, had been a former independent contractor for fusion gps. So, in other words, bruce ohr decides to insert himself into an investigation after the professional agents involved in this investigation said, mr. Steele, isnt reputable, credible and has been talking to the media. Were not going to talk to Christopher Steele anymore. Bruce ohr says i should and he meets with these people who are the employers of Christopher Steele or own his dossier, whos also bruce ohrs wifes source of compensation. Had been as of september 2016 she had no longer been an independent contractor. And i want to also i think its important to be clear because this is relevant to the significance of some of the inappropriate actions here, the fbi was not a reluctant participant in this relationship that was the conduit from bruce ohr, through bruce ohr to steele as we lay out here. Theyre not saying we dont want to deal with him. Theyre saying, oh, yeah, essentially if you have something, we would love to hear from you. I wish mike lee werent sitting here two people away from me now. As a National Security hawk, i have argued with mike lee in the 4 1 2 or five years that ive been in the senate that stuff like this couldnt possibly happen at the fbi and at the department of justice. So as somebody who is embarrassed on behalf of the fbi about your report because i believe its critically important that we have the fisa statute. The Approval Rating of applications that come before the fisk are off the charts. A couple years ago when i saw them, it was 97. 9 , is that a fair the last number i saw was 98 . 98 Approval Rating of applications that come before the fisk. Why would it be that high . Im asking you to answer that. Im saying that the good answer is, in an ex parte, but in an ex parte proceeding before the court, when you the american citizen who might be being sur veiled or suspected of something that would open a surveillance warrant against you, the assumption would be if you cant be there to defend yourself, its because the departments lawyers are so superscrupulous if there was any information that might exonerate you or counter act the view that had them pursue the case, they would say the bar is so high here, hell air on the side of privacy. And so mike lee has warned me for 4 1 2 years the potential for abuse in this space is terrible and i constantly defended the integrity and the professionalism of the bureau and of the department that you couldnt have Something Like this happen. Lets move on from bruce ohr and move to the renewals. The renewals, the first one, we can have a debate about, thats been the headline about whether or not that was political bias that led to opening the investigation. The second, the third and the fourth warrant against or fisa proceeding against against carter page are based on an assumption the court has that we have a bunch of information the first time we heard this case, if we thought it was legitimate to open a case into this guy, the bureau is going to have so much integrity and the departments lawyers are going to have so much integrity, if theres a reason for them to doubt information that led to the opening application they made to us, theyll bring us that information. So in renewals two, three, and four, they bring none of this information, right . Thats correct. Theyre not telling the department so the lawyers at the department can decide what to include for the court. So i think we face a massive crisis of public trust in American Life in general partly because an open society is going to be susceptible to the types of things the russians run against us. The real debate we should be having on tv and in the Journalist Community about moments like this is not about making this month 48 or 49 of the president ial 2016 election that will never die, we should be having an advanced conversation about 2024, 2028, when china runs operations against us that are going to be far more sophisticated than this. If the bureau functions this poorly during a moment like this, when we actually have a really sophisticated attack against the u. S. , were going to have a much, much bigger problem. And so whether or not people are going to agree with your opening headline on whether or not political bias was a relevant factor in opening the investigation, theres no doubt that theres a massive cultural failing inside doj and at the fbi that would allow renewals to come in the second, third and fourth case without anyone thinking their work is going to be scrutinized again. If this can happen in an investigation where they would expect theres going to be a lot of subsequent scrutiny, what is your suspicion about what happens in a regular fisa application or renewal process. If the American People hear this and say this can happen against a campaign for the presidency of the United States, what happens in an ordinary fisa case . Thats why we started this week a new review and audit to look at others, not only on the intel side, but on the Counter Terrorism side on u. S. Persons, what else is going on there . We want to be fair. We dont want to do it just on the this. But for the reasons you indicated, if its happening here, whats going on elsewhere. I want to summarize Something Else that you say which is to this point. So many people are just reading this hearing or listening to this hearing between the lens of who their favorite jersey was in the 2016 election. Quote, there are so many basic and fundamental errors, that so many basic and fundamental errors were made by three separate handpicked teams on one of the most sensitive fbi investigations that was brief today the highest levels within the fbi and that the fbi officials expected would eventually be subjected to close scrutiny raised significant questions regarding the fbis chain of command management and supervision of the fisa prose. In our view, this was a failure of not only the Operational Team but the managers and supervises. For these reasons, we recommend that the fbi review of the performance of these employees and who had the responsibility for the preparation, the woods review, which is where you check your work and you say do we have any footnotes and could we corroborate this if we had to, or approval of the fisa applications as well as the managers and supervisors in the chain of command and take appropriate take action deemed appropriate, in addition given the extensive failures we identified, we believe that additional oversight work is required to assess the compliance with the department and policies that seek to protect the Civil Liberties of the u. S. Persons. Also known as the whole Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, we have today initiated, this is a big headline, folks, we have initiated an oig audit that will examine the compliance with the woods procedures in fisa applications that target u. S. Persons in both Counter Intelligence and Counter Terrorism investigations. Thats a big headline. Youre saying there is a systemic cultural failure of accountability at the bureau related to the fisa process. There are a bunch of things that weve argued about for a long time and hes right about things that i think ought not be right. If we had another tenminute round, if we had time for another round, i think we should ask some really fundamental questions about the defensive briefing as well. And the american system, when the people get to pick politicians to represent them for a time the politicians arent better people than the bureaucra bureaucrats but they hold certificates of election. Those politicians incoming dont know as much as the bureaucrats because the Agency Experts have been there for a long time. Thats what the defensive briefing should be about. Thank you, senator coons. Im impressed by the thoroughness of your teams work. You reviewed a million documents and conducted interviews of more than a hundred witnesses including several on multiple occasions, i think it was 170 interviews. Would you agree with me that this is a testimoniment to the rule of law and the transparency of our system that your office can produce such a searching and thorough report that contains some criticism of the most powerful Law Enforcement agency in our nation. Absolutely. I couldnt agree with you more and its a testament to the congress. This is why we have your office to provide an independent assessment of the facts. Fbi director chris wray said in his response to your report that the fbi accepts the reports findings and embraces the need for action. Let me begin by expressing my appreciation to you and director wray by being guided by the facts rather than some of the more breathless conspiracy theories that have been spread recently. President trump has called the entire russia investigation a witchhunt and hoax, but your report found that the fbi had an authorized purpose when it opened its investigation into whether individuals were coordinating with the russian governments broad efforts to interfere in our 2016 president ial election which was grounded in protecting our National Security. Do you stand by that conclusion . We stand by our conclusion. Lets talk about what we all know was happening in 2016 when this investigation began. Russian intelligence hacked the dnc and the Clinton Campaign. Does your report disprove that finding . No, we dont disprove any of the findings. Russian intelligence was acting to release stolen emails through wikileaks, through d. C. Leaks with an intention to help Donald Trumps president ial campaign and you dont disagree with that . We dont disagree with it. There was a coordinated influence campaign on social media to try and tear apart american society, to sow discord and your report doesnt disagree with that. Correct let me just in summary, when the fbi opened this investigation known as crossfire hurricane, russia was at that time engaging in an unprecedented and broad scale attack on our election and our democracy. As a candidate, russia if your listening, i hope youre able to find Hillary Clintons emails. All of this was happening while the fbi was trying to protect our elections and our democracy. I would have preferred to see our president criticize then the russians who were attacking our elections. But to your report, if i might, assistant director of the fbis Counter Intelligence division approved the opening of the fbi investigation into possible connections between the Trump Campaign and russian interference. He told your office there was a Counter Intelligence concern that the fbi was obligated to investigate. Did you find any evidence at all to suggest his actions were motivated by bias, his political views, bipartisan rather than his sense of obligation to protect the country . We did not. On march 4th, 2017, President Trump tweeted, terrible, just found out obama had my wires tapped in trump tower before my victory. Nothing found. Did your investigation identify any evidence president obama ordered the fbi to tap Donald Trumps phone . We didnt find any evidence that fbi had tapped any other phones or anything else other than the fisa that we addressed. But you did find that an fbi employee doctored an email in order to support the carter page fisa application, correct . Correct. As your report concludes, im hear to restate that thats inexcusable and we must hold federal Law Enforcement to the highest standards, even those of us who support federal Law Enforcement. Let me ask you a question about the response of the agency. Who appointed chris wray . President trump. And did director wray accept all of the findings of your investigation . He did. And that includes your finding that the investigation and related investigations were opened for an authorized purpose with adequate predication, did he agree with that . Thats correct. Okay. Your report identified errors the fbi made in conjunction with the page fisa applications. We shouldnt minimize those errors, but i think its critical to put them in context. Your report doesnt speculate as to whether a fisa warrant would have been authorized for mr. Page if officials had considered all of the relevant information in a timely way, thats correct. Thats correct. We dont speculate and mr. Page wasnt indicted in the russia investigation. He was not charged as far as i understand. But the president s campaign manager, Deputy Campaign manager, National Security adviser, Foreign Policy adviser, personal attorney were all either convicted of crimes or pled guilty in federal courts, is that correct . I think i followed the list, but i understand what youre saying. I wont disagree with you. Did you identify fisa errors with regards to any other Trump Campaign official who had been under investigation . The only fisa we found existed was the one weve written about here as to carter page. Within the broader context of the Trump Campaign and the investigation and the outcome, i thought it was worth repeating that the Mueller Investigation produced 37 indictments, guilty pleas and convictions and none of those are called into question by your report, is that correct . We dont address those at all. One of the only points ive heard with bipartisan agreement today is a renewed interest in reforming the fisa process. While we consider to consider sections of the patriot act, i would welcome suggestions from fbi director wray as to statutory reforms to ensure the errors we saw here in the process dont happen again while ensuring the fbi has the authorities it needs to protect our nation. Im encouraged director wray accepts your specific recommendations but i think congress should consider reforms to safeguard Civil Liberties. Do you believe some of the problems you report uncovered your report uncovered would benefit from congressional action to reform the fisa process . We havent talked about it. But thats an important point. We make representations to the department, not to congress. Congress, though, has i think important issues to think about in this report as to how this process can be improved and ensure that these kind of errors are addressed going forward. Inspector general, im grateful for your service and your work. Let me conclude with one last question, President Trump has claimed that fbi agents and officials were biassed against him and worked to favor the campaign of his opponent Hillary Clinton. In your investigation, did you find that the fbi took any investigative step based on political bias against President Trump . Im going to be careful on that because of the referral we made per the ig act on the altered email and some of the other issues we found on the fisa. Did you find any investigative step that was influenced by political bias. Again, im going to be careful because we have a situation where we have the altered email by the individual who as we know in the footnotes had Text Messages that were concerning that we identified last year. Im going to defer on what that what the rational might have been. But overarching, your conclusion was the initiation of this investigation was well predicated and was for a lawful purpose . Correct. In terms of the opening, correct. Thank you very much for your report. As to everything that followed the opening, theres a lot of concern . I have a lot of concerns about the fisa process and how that occurred. The confidential informant issue raises significant policy questions but we found they complied with the policies there. Peter strzok worked for who . For well, over time he moved up the chain. Okay. Senator holly. Let me start where senator coons left off. You had significant concerns about the authorization or the application for the fisa warrants, right, you said earlier when it came to political bias, when you moved to the fisa warrants, things get murkier. Correct. You can open an investigatioinvestigation pretty easily. Youve testified today that it can be done quite easily. But when you start taking actions, start taking steps, start gathering evidence, thats when actually real questions arise and your testimony today has been and in this report is that when that happened, theres potential concerns here about political bias, is that correct . We have actions taken here that were not consistent with the rules, the practices, the policies and what we couldnt reach a conclusion on is what motivated that. I think its very significant. Let me be honest with you, which is worse, is it worse to have a Foreign Government trying to meddle in our elections or is it worse to have our own government meddling in the election . Because thats exactly what this report shows. It shows that our government, the most powerful Law Enforcement agency in the nation, the fbi, effectively meddled in an ongoing president ial campaign. And the thing that gets me is you expect it from Foreign Governments. Im not saying its good. Im saying you expect it. Theyve been doing it for years. Russia has been doing it for years. Theyve tried to do it this last cycle. China has been doing it. And we know what steps to take, weve got to take them more effectively. When our own government does it, how can the American People have confidence and what do we do . Theres one actor here i think who has not gotten the credit that they collectively deserve and thats the Democratic National committee. Ive heard my friends complain about Hillary Clintons contain and how the dnc didnt do a good job in 2016. I beg to differ. The dnc pays for the steele dossier, solicits the steele dossier and gets the federal bureau of investigation to go get fisa warrants, sur veil an american citizen, surveil a president ial campaign all on the basis of this manufactured garbage that they paid for. Thats extraordinary. That has got to be a first time in history. Let me just ask you, are you aware ever of another president ial campaign being targeted by the fbi during the Campaign Like the trump one was, to your knowledge . I wouldnt suggest im an expert on. To your knowledge, no, youre not aware of anything like this. And im correct in thinking that the steele dossier was solicited by the dnc, thats correct . The Clinton Campaign or the dnc, it was learned by the fbi that that was the case. So we get the steele dossier, its fed to the fbi, the fbi goes and asks for these fisa warrants which have all of the problems that you have articulated and that my colleagues have drawn out including outright fabrication of evidence in these fisa applications and then not only does the fbi get a Surveillance Program ongoing effectively, the president ial campaign during cycle, but they also get news stories written during the campaign about the Surveillance Program. In september of 2016 theres a story about possible Counter Intelligence investigation of the Trump Campaign. In october of 2016 theres a story about the fbi investigating the Trump Campaign and we know on that last one that steele himself was involved, is that correct . Thats correct and the fbi knew he was involved in the september one as well that youre referencing, i believe. What action did the fbi take when they knew these two facts . In november they closed him what did the Crossfire Hurricane Team take . What steps did they take when they knew this about steele . What happened is they closed him as a source in november, but thats when the meetings with mr. Ohr started. The fbi takes the information via a doj conduit, which is an unbelievable problem, but theyre taking all of this information on board from steele even after they know hes incredible. To me, it is this is the untold story of the 2016 campaign and i dont know who had the dnc hatched this. I suppose they ought maybe take a victory lap. They should be e remembered for it. To get the fbi to launch, pursue surveillance of a rival president ial campaign and into the newly elected president s term i think is extraordinary. It is absolutely extraordinary. Are these individuals whose misdeeds that you have documented here in this report, the members, im thinking of the case agents, are they still, to your knowledge, working at the fbi . To my understanding, some are, some arent. And why are those who are, why are they still there . Whats your understanding . You would have to ask director wray. And i think we should. What about the case agent who directly misled the doj and intelligence attorney about carter pages relationship with other intelligence agencies in our government who directly mislead the oi about that . Is that person at the fbi . That person is still there. And working you would have to ask what about the procedures at the fbi. What procedures have been changed at the fbi to date to prevent Something Like this from happening . All that im aware of is whats in director wrays letter thats attached here. But certainly there are far more reform and is changes that are needed to address all of our recommendations. Its a good beginning. But theres a lot more to be done. I will just say in closing, mr. Chairman, that i think it is it is an extraordinary thing when the most powerful Law Enforcement agency in the country, may be the world, is able to effectively intervene and influence a president ial election at the behest and with the cooperation of another political party. Ive been saying for a long time, theres no collusion in the 2016 campaign. Maybe im wrong. But i think the collusion was between the dnc and the fbi and it is if we dont change something here, to see fbi director wray say that he doesnt think that this vindicates the fbi and he doesnt think there are any problems, i for one dont know how any american can have confidence in that institution and the integrity of our elections if things like this can happen. Thank you for the work youve done. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator blumenthal. Thanks, mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here, mr. Horowitz, and thank you to you and your team for your work. Do you agree that the fbi meddled in the 2016 election . What i found is whats in this report. Im not doing did you find any evidence that the fbi purposefully intervened to affect the outcome of the 2016 election . Weve written about what they did here and ill stand on those findings and those findings alone. I didnt find any conclusion that the fbi meddled or interfered in the election to affect the outcome . We did not reach that conclusion. You didnt reach a conclusion about the fbi intervening in the election or acting out of political bias, correct . Im going to stick by this report and last years midyear election report on what it did, because there are specific findings into specific individuals. Let me ask you about some of those findings, but let me just say at the very outset, i know youre a career official and i want to pay tribute to all of the Law Enforcement officials, particularly in the fbi, because i can see how some of whats been said about them might be severely and unfairly demoralizing. We have your back. We have your back. When youre out there enforcing the law with weapons pointed at you and sometimes they are firearms and sometimes they are political weapons, we should have your back. So some of whats been said here but also in the larger realm of public comment, i think has been severely a disservice to our Law Enforcement and to the United States because we are discouraging able and dedicated young people from joining your ranks and we need them. And i say that as a former United States attorney and a state attorney general who has worked with some of the best and some of the less best. Let me ask you a few questions about those findings. President trump has said repeatedly that the fbi, quote, tried to overthrow the presidency. Did you find any evidence that the fbi tried to overthrow the presidency . What we found is, again, laid out here in this report. Well, is there any evidence that you found that the fbi tried to overthrow the presidency . No. We found the issues the answer is no. Did you find any evidence that the fbi tried to entrap anyone . As a legal matter, since we dont see any actual cases come out of this, i think the answer is there was no entrapment. Did you find any evidence that the fbi tapped the phones at trump tower . No. The only wiretapping or the only surveillance we found is whats laid out here. Did you find any evidence here that the fbi planted informants in the Trump Campaign . No. Did you find any evidence that the fbi tried specifically to entrap any of the individuals who were the focus of their investigation namely manafort, flynn, George Papadopoulos or page . Entrapment is a legal term. We didnt see that in this case. Theres no evidence here of entrapment. But the president has claimed that there was entrapment, that his phones were tapped, that carter page may have been used as a spy. Did you find evidence that the fbi put spies in the Trump Campaign . Im going to speak to the terminology used at the department that we oversee, which is confidential human sources. We did not find evidence that the fbi sought to place confidential human sources inside the campaign or plant them inside the campaign. Would you agree with the contention that the russia investigation, including the Mueller Investigation, was a quote, unquote bogus narrative . We dont address the russia investigation or take issue with its handling at all in this report. In fact, you found or agreed with mueller that russian the russian government attacked our democracy in a sweeping and systemic way, correct . We add a couple pages in here as background to reference not only the Mueller Report but other reports as well including congressional reports on that issue. Did you show this report to attorney general barr before it was released . Yeah, as standard process, we provide this to the attorney general and to the fbi director. Did he suggest any changes . He didnt suggest any changes. He didnt suggest any corrections . He found a few typos and other things that he suggested we might want to think about. So you must have been surprised by his attack on you and your team . No. I had some idea he wasnt completely supportive of that. Do you think he was fair . Hes the attorney general of the United States. Weve had ive had cases where situations where there have been disagreements between myself and leadership of the components i want to give you a chance to defend yourself and your team who have done a highly professional job here, 19 months, hundreds of witnesses, hard work, do you think this attack on you and your team is fair . Ill say this, we my defense of our team and our work is we stand by the report, nothing ive heard changes our view, the department, the attorney general, the Deputy Attorney general, the fbi director, whomever is free to disagree with my conclusions. If i took i didnt take the ig job to be popular and to not have my feelings hurt. I assume you would not agree with the characterization that the agents involved in this work on the investigation of the russian attack on our democracy were quote, unquote scum, would you . I would not call people names like that. I welcome my colleagues apparent newfound indignation about the potential reform of the fisa court and the process and you well know, im sure, that reforms have been suggested, in fact i authored the fisa court reform act in 2013 with 18 cosponsors, all democrats. That legislation would have created a special advocate. It would have created other checks because the fisa process is secret, because ordinarily we dont want our adversaries to know were investigating them, correct . Right. But there still needs to be checks and balances, scrutiny to make sure that Accurate Information is presented to the fisa judges who work in secret. Unfortunately, great many of those proposed reforms did not become law. Some did in the usa freedom act in 2015. I know its not your job to make recommendations about fisa court reforms, but do you think that your report indicates the need for the kinds of reforms that i proposed in the fisa court reform act of 2013 . I think its very important to have consideration of reforms like that and we dont make the recommendations but we are available to help with legislation drafting or other i hope that we can make use of your expertise in this area and i hope my republican colleagues who have been so vehement and vocal about the dangers of potential fisa abuses will join me looking forward and reform of that court. Did you show this report to the United States attorney . Had received a copy of the report according to our usual practice. Theres been public reports there were references to the attorney in this report. Is that correct . In one of the the early drafts. Im not going to get into an earlier draft. The whole reason we do that with the drafts is is to allow for us to engage with individuals. The department, the fbi, we make changes when we get things wrong. We make changes if we need to clarity if. So i would rath arer not get what the draft reports might have said. Hoe told us what he disagreed with and we considered his comments and what you see here is our final report that we standby. He disagreed on the predication question. I mentioned earlier the nature of our conversation. Did you remove any reference to him . I dont believe believe i should get into what our draft delirium tremens or didnt say. There are edits made through the review process and there are many people who ask to make edits. We dont make many, but if we Start Talking about what people gave us comments on, it would be a challenge to do these reports. Which is why ufs surprised by the press release. Did you conclude in this report that your mifindings shod a grotesque abuse of power . Dwe did not say that in the report. Would you agree with that characterization . We did not reach a conclusion like that, so i wouldnt agree with that. From my stand point, people can have that view point, but that wasnt our conclusion. Just one last question. The fisa warrants, they were renewed a number of times . Three times. Based on your experience and your report, theres a reason why warrants are renewed. They are renewed because they are bruce producing useful information, correct . Or should be producing useful information. And your review of those warrants would indicate that they were producing useful information. Not sure thats entirely correct. And i dont know how much i can say thabt in this setting. They were producing information. They were producing information. Im not sure how i would characterize how they were helpful or not. One way or the other, far from a bogus narrative, the russia investigation produced 37 individual indictments, 7 convictions, 5 prison terms and hopefully will send a message to adversaries, the russians and other nations, that mr. Mueller warn warned about that there will be action taken against them. I hope we can come together in a bipartisan basis to reform the fisa prospect just as importantly for ongoing attack on our democracy. Thats maybe the most important point here that your report in every possible way ought to alarm americans a about the ongoing attack on our nation by the russians and other nations. Thank you. Thank you. Very quickly. I think senator blumenthal makes a good point. How would you describe the behavior here of knowing that the sub source disavows the dossier that was the primary reason you got a warrant, finding a lawyer doctored an email to keep the investigation going in a way unfair to mr. Page. This is not routine, do you agree with that . It is definitely not routine. I dont know any reason to think it is routine. Kind of off the charts bad . Its pretty bad. Thank you. Its a good prelude to where i want ed to head. Thank you for being here. Us yo guys do great work. I have a lot of confidence in the igs and i commend your staff for the topnotch effort here. Us dont think anybody is questioning the quality of your work. Im not an attorney. Ive never argue d a case befor the supreme court. Im not a prosecutor, police tort general. Im a business person. So i have been trying to figure out how the average citizen would look at this at this hearing and try to understand what were trying to get to here. Youve mentioned once or twice that it gets when people ask about mitt call motivation, when it has to do with the renewal request it gets a bit murky. I just decided being somebody who used to do a lot of Organization Charts that i would try to explain to the American People why this gets murky. Im going to focus on the doj chart. This is roughly the Organization Structure that was in place with the doj. Before i do, lets get some of the characters not on the chart, although actively involved with those who were. I want to get those right. This started with a dossier that was paid for to be prepared if i fusion gps but the dnc. And still was a part of that process. Is that correct . Thats correct. And then his primary sub source was someone who when he was finally questioned said they misstated or exaggerated our statements that the alleged sexual activities were rumor or speculation. That the conversations were had with friends over beers and so on and so forth. So that was something after the dossier was used as a basis for moving forward, this is information that came afterwards that was known to people in this Organization Chart before they attest ed ed to a fisa court th the fbi found the russian base sub source to be truthful and cooperative. Thats an accurate statement, but if they had included all the truthful and cooperative comments he made, it would seem to me it had a different effect on the renewal. And the the omission of something as profound as this to not infer from that there was a political motivation or r lets take politics out and see an jind. This is something we want to get regnued and continue the investigation. I dont understand as a nonattorney how that doesnt carry a fair amount of weight. Now i want to get to that chart. So i have the report into the office of the dag. S when steele was no longer allowed to speak with the the fbi because he was shopping the dossier to make money through the media or for whatever reason, the fbi just conveniently accepted the feedback from stieele. Steele the is somebody who worked r for fusion gps on behalf of the dnc that has been proven false. His wife worked for gps. Not necessarily when the investigation was going on, but you can assume she had relationship there is. S there. But when they cut off steele as a source of information for the fbi, did i hear you right that multiple times they seemed to receive feedback from steele through orr . We identified 13 occasions. This guy on the chart at the top here working for the Deputy Attorney general never commu communicated with any of his staff or any of his superiors he was doing. Thats correct. Probably because he asked for approval he wouldnt have gotten. Fz these arent people walking down the hallway and in the meeting with the director of the fbi. Lisa page is on this chart. Shes a special counsel. It looks like they were in the office and roughly the time frame. This is very important. Somebody that works for the fbi that says hes not ever going to be president , right . This other guy on the chart who youll see in a future text message talks a about a meeting with mcindicacabe that says, no wont, we will stop him. Fpz and the path that theres no way he get elected. But im afraid we cant take that risk. Its like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before youre 40. These are all people walking the hallways involved in this investigation having those sorts of discussions about the president of the United States. Or the candidate and then the president. Is that one of the reasons youre saying its murky there was a political motivation and the false premise for the renewal of the warrants . The concern grows out of the fact that all of the failures and the information that we should have been given and wasnt given and the question being what was the intent, what was their intention or motivation there and what we determined was we couldnt definitively say what the motivation was. Are these pretty smart people . Fairly well educated . I assume so. They have law degrees. At least some of them do. You think the review for people at this level to be clear, the stuff that didnt half on the review was basic stuff. You didnt need to be a deeply experienced fbi agent to be able to do it the right way. Thats my point. So wouldnt you think that would be muscle mm ri for people going through this process to know they had an obligation to go through that. They clearly should have. So wouldnt it also seem reasonable if they didnt, you cant answer this question, but it seems like if something as standard as that process before you go to a fisa court to not do it, it was something they intended not to do. They didnt want go through it. It seems to be a logical conclusion. Then you ask yourself why. Because we dont ever want this guy to get collected president. If he does, they want to impeach him. I cant understand anybody working in this organization, understanding the scrutiny that we placed under the fisa courts. And by the way, count me in. Because we now have seen the abuses you warned us about. You were right. But it just seems to me that this organization, this closely held organization of highly educated, highly experienced people, i have to believe that they were hand picked for this process. They were picked because they had some of the best representations in there. They had to know it was going to come to this. It was going to be scrutinized. Regardless of who the subject of the investigation was. If the names were changed, we would still be here. It looks like they were trying to skate along the edges and get away with something. I cant imagine they did it than any other reason than a political motivation. I dont expect you to respond to that. S but nobody can tell me with people of this caliber, with the record of partisan visit yallic profanity about this president to say, whoop, we just forgot to do a standard proceed yurl yurl review that you expect to know you need to do it. It doesnt make sense to me. I want to ask you another question. You have got an lot of questions that had nothing to do with your report. And i think you have done a very good job of saying im here to talk about my report. You didnt do a are russia colt conclusion investigation. You didnt reprosecute the council report. Would you agree you got a lot of questions that had nothing to do with what you were here to talk about today . I certainly had several. So i wonder if that was politically motivated. What i us found interesting was that we do have people who are using this as a platform on the other side of the aisle that says now we need to revise the we need to look at the fisa process. I dont know why youd use this as a platform unless you thought this was a clear case of where the process was abused. Fpz and then if you look at this this information, this ecosystem of smart people who i think turned a blind eye to damning evidence to serve as a basis for renewal of the fisa report, its just beyond my comprehension. The weight of this evidence in your report, i think, is is pretty strong. I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle when we take up impeachment next month have that same standard for the weight of evidence were going to be asked to look a the. Thank you, mr. Chair. Senator . Thank you. You identify significant issues with the fisa application process for surveillance on carter page. Were you aware of problems with the fbis use of the fisa process . I was not personally, although i will say we have done reports since 9 11. You cant sit here and tell us that these errors only occurred with regard to this process . We have identified problems in the past. I will say we have never done a dive into one as deep as this. As have a a number of us. We understand that there are issues into the fisa process. After you pointed out your errors, the director acknowledged your findings and he is is move iing ahead to mak improvements to the fisa process. As he put it to make the fbi a a much stronger constitution institution. Thats correct. Sglz would you agree its a major decision to seek authority from a fisa court to conduct surveillance. I agree. Fbi officials were politically motivate d and wanting to conduct surveillance on a particular american, wouldnt the decision to seek fisa approval be a point where political bias could affect the process . Could, yes. That would be a a great pretty good time for bias to manifest itself. But here you found no evidence of political bias in deciding to seek fisa approval. We did not find such evidence. When you released your report on monday, both the attorney general immediately issued Public Statements that challenged the findings in your report. Attorney general barr stated the Inspector Generals report makes clear that the fbi launched an intrusive investigation of a u. S. President ial campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that were insufficient to justify the steps taken. Can you point to the page or pages in your report that found that the fbi launched an intrusive investigation on the thinnest of suspicions that were insufficient to justify the actions . We concluded that there was sufficient predication. Would you consider words like the thinnest of suspicions, intrusive investigation, neutral words . Im going to let others answer for their own comments andstick to what we have written. You said everybody is entitled to characterize the investigation. We all know what constitutes a fair characterization. I would say those are not fair. Yesterday attorney general barr challenged the validity of the report and suggested the own fbi agents acted in bad faith or improper motives and it was premature to conclude otherwise. These insinuations are inconsistent with your report. And one justification that he gave for disregarding that the key finding was that unlike the investigator, he hand picked mr. Durham you could not compel testimony. You interviewed 100 witnesses for your investigation. You note you were unable to compel testimony from two people. Were these the only two people for whom you couldnt compel or wouldnt talk to you . Those were the only two people we asked to interview that turned us down. And to you think the fact that you did not interview these two witnesses underr mine the conclusion you found no evidence of political bias in opening the investigation or seeking fisa authority . I dont believe they undermined any of our conclusions. It would have been good to have their evidence like it is normally. Do you think that the findings in your report are inaccurate because you lacked the authority to compel witnesses . Not in this instance, no. In april 2019 the attorney general told congress, quote, i think spying did occur, when talking about the fbis investigation of the Trump Campaigns ties with the are russian government in the 2016 election. And yesterday attorney general barr reiterated the Trump Campaign was clearly spied upon. He claimed the fbis investigative actions, which you discuss in your report, constitute spying. The word spying carries i would say negative connotations, dont you think . It sounds like Law Enforcement is doing something they are not authorized to do. That they would spy on us. And thats why we use and only rely on the word in the law, which is surveillance. And yet we have the high ees Law Enforcement person in the country using the word not just once but twice using the word spying. So clearly your report found that the fbis investigation was for an authorized and with ina adequate predicate to not characterize that as spying. You would not use such a word. We do not use that in the report. Do you think questioning the motives of your staff as possibly involving bad faith or accusing them of spying would be demoralizing to your people . I would not speak to my folks about them acting in that manner. Do you think i havent seen b that either. What you all do in your professional capacity . I think thats a rhetorical question. Point taken. Law enforcement staffs investigations as intrusive and based on the thinnest of suspicions also casts dispersions on the professionalism of your people. Thats probably also not terribly supportive. Did the attorney general provide you with any evidence that to support the claim that the fbi agents were spying . In terms of evidence, we didnt get any evidence from the attorney general. We did meet with mr. Durham and had a discussion with him. But we, a as i said, are standing by our conclusions. Does it bother you that you have the attorney general using words like spying to characterize what the fbi did under an authorized process . Im going to stick to what we do and said and not try to guess the motives or ideas or thoughts of anyone else out there. I dont see you jumping up and down and fwraeing with use of such words. Let me go on. On november 21st, dr. Fiona hill warned that russia has, geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election. Even as we speak, thats what russia is doing. She also warned against promoting the fictional narrative that ukraine rather than russia interfered in the election. These conspiracy theories, she said, cheerily advanced russian interests. Fbi director stated on monday that the fbi has no information that would indicate that ukraine tried to interfere in the election. We talk about interfere, weaver talking about the kind of systemic government sanctioned interference with our election process that russia engaged in. And theres no way that ukraine engaged in that kind of systemic interference. So in all of the documents that you reviewed, witnesses, did you find any evidence that the fbi has no information that indic e indicates ukraine tried to interfere in the 2016 election . We didnt see any. But youre looking through a million documents. There might have been something there that referenced that maybe ukraine was engage ing in the interference that russia did. I know that senators leahy asked you about this. I anything in your report that calls into question the conclusion of the Mueller Report that ya interfered in the election in a sweeping fashion . No. You all know that the Mueller Investigation resulted in 37 indictments and 6 convictions of trump associates. Is there anything in your report that calls into question Robert Muellers conclusion that the Trump Campaign not only knew about russias election interference, but they encouraged it and expected to benefit electorally from it. No. I know you receive a lot of requests from members of congress to do certain investigations and ive been among those. I realize you have to take certain factors into consideration because you only have so many resources to conduct all these investigations. One of the requests that i and my colleagues asked you to investigate was whether attorney general bars handling was misleading and whether he demonstrated bias in dealing with the Mueller Investigation. In light of the factors that im sure you consider, will you take another look at the requests that i isnt you to see whether youre able to investigate any of them . On that, first of all, i would be happy to meet with you and talk about it with you in person. Let me say i have had conversations with some of the members hof the committee about this issue. The letters asking us to look at the conduct of senior lawyers at the department directly implicate section 80 of the Inspector General act, which problems me of locking at conduct of lawyers in their capacity as lawyers. Senator lee has correspondesponl that passed bipartisan, full support, pending here. Several members of the committee have cosponsored it. That provision prevents me from undertaking investigations of misconduct by Senior Department lawyers. Or actually any Department Lawyers. This is one time i think i agree with senator lee that needing to make that kind of change to enable you to make the kind of investigation were asking you to make. I would be happy to talk with you about it further. Thank you. I will keep doing this and i will apologize. Has anyone been convicted of the crime of working with the russian government associated with the Trump Campaign . Not that i know of. Well, they havent. So i just whatever convictions have been attained got nothing to do with colluding with the russians. Thats what fwot us here. And about what happened here. Flt government is surveilling an american citizen pursuant to a fisa warrant and the government comes into information that questions the foundation, is there an obligation to tell the court . Absolutely. They did not do that here . Correct. They lied about the information. They gave misleading information. At what point does a surveillance that started lawfully become illegal . It can become unauthorized, inappropriate, illegal, depending upon the facts. Would you aploy those terms to what happened in the case. Im going to let others that have the ability to address soom of these issues decide what the precise level of intent was. Heres what im going to say. It may have started lawfully. It got off the rails quick. It became a criminal conspiracy to defraud the fisa court to put mr. Page through hell and to continue to surveil President Trump a after he got elected. I hope somebody pays a price for that. You certainly have done your part. Thank you, mr. Chair. And thank you, Inspector General, for being here today and presenting this information. And i know that a couple others have focused on this. And id like to dive back in. But first, theres a the lot of respect out there or there has been for the fbi. And i remember as a kid watching muovies or shows that portrayed the fbi and we really thought, wow, those guys. What we have seen through the past number of years, number of months, that a few bad actors have squandered that away. And i think the American People look at the fbi and they think, wow, if they are doing this to a president ial candidate, what would they do to meet its a normal american citizen. Are they really there for me . So im just so sorry that this has led to this. A few bad actors. I heard somebody earlier saying, oh, the mistakes that were made at the fbi. The mistakes. Temperatures not like, oops, i accidentally filed a a fisa warrant or an application. Oops that accidentally happened. Thats not a mistake. It just reeks of ill wishes to do harm. We have always thought of it as great institution. Now im looking at all this information. We reviewed the report. For gods sakes, what is going on t on here . So thank you for doing this work. I think its just really important we take a look at whats going on, why it happened, and id like to focus a little more just on the discipline aspect of this. Because these mistakes were made by some people that really wanted to do bad harm to an individual. So peter struck was fired from the fbi. Is that correct . Thats correct. So he still has a system protection board that is not yet a adjudicated. Thats my understanding. Okay. Does that mean that the termination is final or not final . Im going to get ahead of my Legal Employment law capabilities, if i give you too many opinions on what his legal rights are. Thank you. It seems that there was only one individual referred for possible criminal prosecution based on the ig review. Thats the person that altered the email to imply that carter page was not or never a source for another agency. So with that apparent concealment of facts from the fisa court, especially as it relates to the accuracy of steeles reporting, can you explain why there were no more criminal referrals. What we ultimately decided was that the conduct here warranted sending the entire report to the fbi in the department for review for review from the line agent all the way to the top of people who were still at the fbi. And as we said, we didnt see evidence of intent, but we also didnt hear good explanations, which left us with an open question on what the motive was and the state of mind was and the process that the fbi and the department will now assess. So we dont know of anyone else thats been fired or reassigned. That would have to come from the fbi or the department. So with that, how many case agents involve with the fisa applications in your report are still active case agentsed to . As i sitter hoorks i cant tell you the precise number. There are still a number that are still active agents. Whether they are in center roles, i dont know. Because you dont know specifically if they are still working as case agents, do you believe if they were work iing case agents that the information contained in your report as it relates to those case agents should be released to other criminal defendants under the departments policy . I think this raises those kinds of issues for the department to review and consider what they have to do to remedy any wrongs here. For those folks watching this at home in iowa, can you talk a little bit about the policy . In criminal cases, when an agent is is found to have engaged in misconduct, whether by a judge or the department of justice, theres an obligation under the case to notify the defendant of the wrong doing or harm or misconduct, impeachable evidence, those sorts of things. That obligation is taken seriously. It has to be taken seriously. I have done Law Enforcement Corruption Cases as an ausa. One of the first things we do including now as ig is notify prosecutors and the department and Law Enforcement to ensure they take appropriate steps in a timely way to make sure those agents or prosecutors, but agents were here talking about arent continuing to pursue cases or arent allowed to stay in those positions if they have violated the trust they have been given. I think thats important. The reason were talking a little bit about this and discipline policy and procedure is is because the American People when they look at an institution like the fbi, they want to know if they are good gois. If they are not, they need to go. The American Public gets tired of seeing bad actors with no repercussions. Very important from our standpoint as the Inspector Generals Office there be accountability for all kinds across the board. And performance failures and those need to be taken into account. Performance failures, there was a lot going on in the department. They werent just mistakes, a as somebody casually mentioned. These are not just his takes. This was bad conduct. It was intentional. So i do think that as we see this move on, move forward, that anybody that was involved in those malicious activities is gone. A little bit about policy and procedures just very quickly. The i. G. s office previously identified a pattern of leaks and improper contact between fbi employees and the media. Part of the decision to work the cross fire hurricane case out of the fbi headquarters, it does seem to be constitute to the fear of leaks if it were actually worked out in the field. So can you characterize how much of a problem leaks are and those unauthorized contacts between the immediamedia and members wie fbi . So we identified this last year in our clinton election report. The number of contacts. We have seen it a as we have done these reports subsequent to that in finding inappropriate, improper contact between a agents and the media. Since our report last year, director wray put out a new policy to try to address that and change the culture, which is what we talked about a year ago. The cull kmur and the viewpoint of in a federal criminal investigation, fairness to the defendant for the subject of the investigation, fairness to victims if there are victims. Fairness to the process requires people, agents working these cases to keep their head down, work the case and not disclose information to outside parties, whether its the media, friends, relatives, neighbors, whomover. That information has to stay in the the a office. So there has been a policy change. But what are the repurr cushions if someone is found guilty of engaging in those unauthorized contacts. So thats up with of the things well follow up with the fbi on. Whats actually been the penalty thats been imposed. Whats happened to those folks and how is that message getting out. Not just publicly, but internally there will be consequences for that. Without the consequences, that goes away. Theres no restoration of trust in the agency if there are not repercussions to those that are maliciously pursuing these types of activities. So i appreciate your time. I appreciate your team. And i work they put into the report. And in all fairness, weve got to do better. We have a a long ways to go to restore trust in the fbi and anyone working with the fbi. So i appreciate it. Thank you so much. I yield back. Senator harris . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you conducting for to ro investigation into the department of justice yaush investigation. Your report makes clear there was a legitimate reason. Is that correct . Thats a sufficient predication. In addition your office found no evidence that the fbi launched a politically motivated investigation, is that correct . Thats correct. Another key finding that the fbi committed several errors in his applications and this their applications to surveil . Or maybe more than several. As the fbi director wray acknowledged the investigation found serious fbi misconduct that needs to be addressed and director wray said the fbi accepts the findings. Thats correct. On the other hand, attorney general barr has been highly critical of your findings. During the final stages of your investigation, he even embarked on his own personal investigation by meeting with foreign leaders in foreign lands, apparently in serarch of evidence that contradicts the fact that russia interfered in the president ial election to benefit trump. Clearly barrs investigation launched to do the bid iding of President Trump has two objectives. One, to undermine the integrity of our Intelligence Community. The goal, to cast down on the finding that rush foo interfered in the election in order to benefit the Trump Campaign, and two, to intimidate the men and women of our Intelligence Community by suggesting that our National Security professionals will face serious consequences if they investigate wrong doing on the part of this president or his operatives. So i appreciate your extensive work and the work that your office has devoted to this investigation. But in addition, you have the power and the duty to investigate misconduct committed by the attorney general of the United States, who is doing the bidding of the president to undermine our Intelligence Community. Us trust you take that duty seriously. I do, and i would just like to add that under the law, under the Inspector General act, it carves out from my r authority the ability to look at misconduct by Department Lawyers from the line lawyer all the way to the top. History has also shown us that the Inspector General can participate in an investigation of the attorney general and that happened with general gonzales. That happened its worth noting that happened after the attorney general said off office was not going to get the case. It was going to go to the office of professional correspondent. The choice was whether to join that investigation or not. That wasnt initiatives through us. Thats the important point. The law has to change. Are you recommended the law change . Absolutely. In fact, theres legislation sponsored several members have cosponsored. The house has passed this. You would support it . 100 . It was reported that the president s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani asked ukraines to search for dirt. In exchange for the help, he offered to help the criminal cases against them at doj. Giuliani and his associates, two of whom have been indicted and now in federal custody, allegedly reached out to a Ukrainian Energy tycoon who faced legal problems in america. In, change for helping find dirt on the president s political rivals, they connected the cain cranen with lawyers to get a top level meeting at the department of justice. In essence, his squeem was an a a attempt to trade get out of jail free for political favorites. Attorney general barr met with ukraines lawyers who ask that the department of justice withdraw evidence in the bribery prosecution. Rlier today you said you were not informationing matters related to ongoing issues. Does that mean you have decided no to investigate these incidents . No, as i think mentioned in a recent letter. I have been in touch with fellow i. G. S who have been asked by members to look the at those issues. We have been in communication with each other. I think as the defense wrote to several members of congress, he was foregoing at the time undertaking any work while the house investigation proceeded and matters here in the senate. And as i mengsd we will look forgotly at any action we have to review getting back to the section discussion, no other ig has that limitation. So they can investigate their sec teenage, administrator whoom ever. I find that out because its important to keep in mind as we get , why are we didnt than the state department. Couldnt agree more. I think anything that would be very kshing. Giuliani rotely rurned to kraib cain. Horde to cook up a tasuate of his own. He told reporters that President Trump asked him to brief the Justice Department and Senate Republicans on what if anything, he ends are you concerned that the Citizen Department could koort nat with the personal lawyer object a scheme designed to president the lit call campaign. Ooum going to look at the evidence myself and facts i have berned before take midget action. To not just relisle on newspapers r or allegations, but to actually spent the tomb lock at them. Happy to meet with you. Please do that. I appreciate that. Is is it appropriate for the attorney general or anyone at the department of justice to take actions that are solely designed to benefit the president politically . I think that would create questions on various rules of the department and prak us it is at the department. During attorney general barrs last appearance before this committee, i asked him has the president or anyone at the white house ever suggested that you open an investigation of anyone. After pondering the word suggest, the toerp general decliented to answer. It suggested to many he has opened plutically motivated visions. Inteed we know during a call with the president ukraine, he would follow up regarding the favor that the president demanded. Did the attorney general or anyone at justice follow up with the president s call . I dont know the answer to that question. Anyone in r your office . I dont believe anyone in my office would know it. It gets to the question of a different be the attorney general. In most instances it would follow square ri from the prohibition on my jurisdiction. President trumps phone conversation was 57 apparent effort to slit interference. I including the state department, office of management and budget and ores. Are you working with the inspectors general of these various agencies on that issue . As i mentioned, allegations have come in. Well talk sglsh are you working with other ig ooz . I dont have any ongoing work at this point. Im not sure what my lead, if id have a Statutory Authority to look at actions by lawyers at the Department Related to misconduct. Have you been approached to work with them on an investigation that related to that phone call . Ill say we have had discussions generally. I dont know what other i. G. S have or do not have Ongoing Investigations. You have had conversations generally about this phone call . A bt jirlly ukraine related matters and discussions generally. How about specifically about this phone call . I dont recall about it. But i have to refresh my collection on this issue. We have been smepend ining a a amount of time dealing with the report that were talking about today. Involving ukraine. The american system of justice was founded on the principle of equal justice urnds the law and that mean there is cannot be one system of justice for one people and a different for others. And i have spent my career fighting for equal justice. I will tell you that everybody in the department of the justice has a duty to make sure that people get a fair shot. Unfrptly, recent reports suggest the actions taken by leaders fall short of their lixs. For example, in 2011 the department of justice counsel issued an upon that paved the way to legal lisle online fwamable. This was oppose d by sheldon adeleson, who spent millions of dollars to support President Trump and his lobbyists also sent a a memo to top doj officials asking that the opinion be reinvestigator verse versed. Has your office investigated whether Political Considerations motivated the department of justices abrupt are reversal . Im fairly confident we would be barred from doing that by the statutory prohibition. I dont think we would have Legal Authority to look at why the office of League Council made a decision. Unless was connected to it. My time is up. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I join everybody else in thanking you for the work you have done here. Im going to go back to an issue thats been talked about by many of my cheegs today. Thats the question of bias. And actually, i want to start by going back to june of 2018 when you were last here before the committee. I requested of you and we talked about your findings then. The focus specific i recall was the information thats already been wl presented here about what i consider the undeniable bias they had against President Trump. At that time, you made similar statements to those you made today, which is is that you do not find bias in the decisions you were evaluating in that report. But as i went through that, you also confirmed that you were not saying that there was no bias by those who were involved in making decisions. You were saying you could not prove that bias was a factor in their management of the activities they engaged in on behalf of the fbi. As i understood it, you said that there was bias, but in fact, you had asked them whether their bias influenced their work performance. They had told you that it did not. You had no contrary evidence to dispute that. Is that correct . Let me clairifclarify. I we found that those Text Messages evidenced bias, what we ultimately found was that other people were involved and made many of those decisions, not them. And that was the base. Was the other individual who is we didnt have Text Messages for in evidence of bias. That would be consistent with what your report here today says. Deputy attorney general, i believe thats his title. Assistant director, depending upon the time period. Hes the one who made the final decision to open each of the four investigations. Correct. He did that in consultation with a number of others. And you dont necessarily know what advice was given in those conversations . I dont. He made the final decision and because you used the phrase very consistently, you did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that plut call bias influenced the decision to open these four investigations. Did you ask limb will he had bias. We asked all the bnss as to whether bias or other improper considerations had any impact, but we also looked for emails, Text Messages, documents that could show what we found frankly was page. Thats how you find evidence of bias. Beyond that, im stuck trying to understand whats in somebodys head. I want to be clear what youre saying and not saying. And in this case, what youre saying is you could not find any documentary or testimonial toefd contradict the statements of the investigators that they were not letting bias influence their decision. Correct. Do you believe thats an open question . I can only speak to the evidence we found. I think the important point here, and i made earlier, a all the evidence is is here. People are free to consider, evaluate what they think peoples motivations were. You arent making that decision. Were not making a decision on ultimately information evidence we dont have that somebody may have acted. In my opinion and i think in the opinion of most of us who have on this side of the aisle who have talked to you today, i think theres tons of evidence of bias here. In fact, you have referred for further action to the attorney general one case for criminal prosecution, if i understand it right, and i other cases of how many other individuals . I want to be clear. Were talking about the fisa oppose d to the open. I understand. Theres a distinction. I understand that. I appreciate that. Because in the conduct t appears there has been intense bias. But youre not making that judgment. I understand that. Youre referring that to the attorney general. And the fbi. And on this same issue, you indicated that similarly since you could not find any documentary evidence or testimonial evidence to contradict their statements that they were not biassed, that that leaves an open question as to what the fbi or attorney general will find with the refer referrals. There are serious failures on the operation of the connection with fisa. Whether it was sheer gross incompetence that led to this. Its intentional misconduct and anything in between. What the motivations are. I cant tell you. If someone were to characterize what youre telling us to be that youre telling us theres no bias here. Thats not what youre telling us. Thats not to the operation of these fisa. Understood. The operation of the fisa. You may not answer this and thats fine. But it seems to me that if we goo beyond the bias question to intentional versus grossly negligent, it seems to me that the kind of misconduct that has been presented by you and reviewed by our chairman and many others here today is mind numbing to consider that it could be just accidental. Can you reach a condition conclusion like that . I would be skeptical, but i understand why people would be skeptical of that. Theres such a range of conduct here that is inexplicable. And the answers we got were not satisfactory that were left trying to understand how could all these errors occurred over a ninemonth period or so on three teams hand picked, one of the highest profile case of the fbi. Going to the very top of the organization involving president ial campaign. I understand that. I appreciate that. I think it is explicable. But i understand that you cant or at least arent going to make that jump. You are going to refer these cases. And i appreciate that. Is criminal prosecution a possible action in the cases other than the one you have specifically referred . I wouldnt want to prejudice or prejudge anything. I would leave it the department to speak to you on that. Let me go on for just a moment. Lets move to the whistleblower question just once more. Im shifting topics completely. This has come up several times today. I understand that a whistleblower is entitled to am anymorety. Explain how it happens that the person accused when a Whistleblower Makes an accusation can have the right that most americans think they should have to confront those testifying against them. How is that accomplished . So ill speak to what we do. We get anonymous allegations frequently. We get people coming forward who are reporting misconduct who want to be anonymous. They want to stay anonymous. We get them both ways. We move forward on both if we think they are sufficient to move forward on. And predicated and have support. But we then have to prove the allegations and get corroboration for it because youre right, the individual if theres a finding of misconduct, has a right to ultimately challenge the evidence found. But it doesnt necessarily mean that they get all the way back to where the nuggets started. If that information is corroborated through other means. And the ig act requires us actually. The law says senator grassley has had a role in this. It make it is quite clear. Unless were legally obligated to provide the information, the law requires us to do so. Its our obligation to keep that information. I appreciate that. As we may face that question here in the senate relatively quickly. The last question and im running out of time. A quick answer if you could. Im trying to find out who brought that steele dossier to the attention of the fbi for the investigation. Was that ann true mccabe . It was steele in july 5th of 2016 going to his handling agent, the agent theres a dispute whether he was a confidential source or not. But the agent that steele had a relationship with is the agent he went to with some of his reports. That agent then put it through a process. It then took from july 5th to september 19th to get the information to the cross for the team. Eventually in that meandering over the two and a half months, theres information that we conclude that mr. Mccabe was involved in referring it over to the team. Thank you. Long day. You got 30 kidneys. Hopefully for 20 more minutes. Im going to try to land this plane early. I believe the fbi is the premier Law Enforcement agency in all of human history. Would you disagree with that . Uhuh would not. Currently, we have some bad apples. I want to thank you and i want to thank your team for your usual superb job. I havent read the entire report. Im about 70 of the way through, but im going to finish it. It is tedious. Its supposed to be tedious. After about 15 of the way through, it made me want to heave. After about 25 of the way through, i thought i dropped acid. Its surreal. I it. Ive read it multiple times and every time i read it, im let me ask you this, how many members comprised the misfire Hurricane Team . There were three teams over that period of time. I would venture to guess, depending upon how you count them. Just roughly. At least half a does ton dozen to a dozen. Does that include their supervisors . Generally speaking. Half dozen to a dozen. Probably a little bit more if youre going all the way up the chain. Do you feel a feel for how many of these folks are still at the fbi . I know you tried to answer that . The higher level people have changed over in the last year. So the director, deputy director, et cetera, the assistant director, Deputy Assistant director, a lot of people in the are some of the actual agents some of the agents are still there. Are they still working on fisa applications . I would encourage you to speak to the fbi about that. I think we will. I think we will. I think theyve taken some steps in that regard. Its easier to divorce yourself than it is to get fired. Thats clear. At least at the fbi. Is mr. Oreghr still at the department of justice . He is. Hes still there . Thats my understanding. How long within the fbi i know you just issued your report. But how long within the fbi has this been knowledge . So we sent the draft for classification not your document. Excuse me for interrupting. The fact that there was a major league screwup here . It evolved over time. They did not know a lot of this until we found it. The altered email, they they know it now, right . Yes. As of the end of august. All right. Does your report vindicate mr. Comey . It doesnt vindicate anybody at the fbi who touched this including the leadership. Does it vindicate mr. Mccabe . Same answer. How about ms. Page . A little different there because as we found here, she wasnt involved in this, so largely wasnt involved in this. She participated in in some discussions but was not in the fisa chain which is who on that note, who briefed who briefed the agent that was sent to surveil Michael Flynn during the meeting with President Trump . That was discussed up and down the chain at the fbi. Okay. So that was not a hidden fact or hidden information. All right. I like the fact that you and your team are very precise in your language. Frankly, i wish i wrote as well as you and your team do. And i notice you were careful to say, im going to quote here, we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the four individual investigations. Your words. Correct. No documentary evidence and no testimonial evidence. You didnt find any documents that said, we did this to get trump, right . Or Text Messages like the strzokpage Text Messages. And nobody who was involved in this circus without a tent looked you in the eye and said, yeah, i did it, to get trump, nobody did that . Or, for example, a whistleblower come in or other people tell us they heard but none of the agents you talked to and said, yeah, i did it to get trump. And no one came through and said i have a problem with whats going on. You dont have to qualify material to know not to do that to the Inspector General, right . Look at some of the Text Messages we found. Im not sure i understand. That maybe a counter narrative to that. Is the absence of evidence always the evidence of absence . No, it isnt. So can you rule out unequivocally and unconditionally that there was no bias here by the fact that you didnt find anything in writing and none of these chuck chuckle heads looked you in the eye and said, yeah, i did it. At any point in time i couldnt say this actually happen. I get it. The difference on the opening is, we concluded, based on the evidence, that mr. Priestap. We have n opened it. We have not seen any evidence that he did it for an improper purpose. Can i tell you 1000 someone wont walk in a week and say you missed this. Thats what im im sorry. Im sorry. Go ahead. Lets talk about the people involved in the initial fisa application and the renewals. These are experienced people, right . In this case, these were experienced people. Many of them had professional degrees including but not limited to law degrees, right . I dont know what their degrees were. They knew the law. They should have known every policy that they had to deal with here. They were handpicked by mr. Mccabe, right . They were handpicked. This was their first rodeo . It certainly wasnt with maybe an exception or two toward the head of relatively new agents coming on board. But that should not have been an excuse. It seems to me that it has to be one of two things, either incompetence or intentional conduct. I agree. Its either sheer incompetence, intentionality or something perhaps in between. What do you think it is . Weve got so many different people here, its first of all, it wouldnt be fair to lump everybody into one because there are Different Actors coming in at different times, some people have more touches of this than others. I think its fair for people to sit there and look at all of these 17 events and wonder how it could be purely incompetence. I want to thank you again. I know this put you in a tough spot. And i hope youll tell your colleagues back at the fbi that we appreciate their work. Absolutely. But this has got to be fixed. At a minimum, somebody has to be fired. Agree completely. A change in the culture also. Im done. Senator blackburn. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And general, i know youre happy to see the end of the dais coming at you. Youre going to get out of here. Let me pick up right where senator kennedy left off because i will tell you the perception by the American People, from reading your report, and weve all put up links so people can read it is that this was intentional, that it was deliberat deliberate, it was malicious, it was premeditated and well thought out and it wasn conductd by people who were desperate. Its the epitome of the swamp. It is murky and muddy and people werent going to get their way and this guy who was going to win and then did win didnt deserve to win. And it does have the appearance of intentionality because you would not have this series of unfortunate coincidences. That is not what it is. It is the surveillance state at work. This is what they did. And they took their professional place and those tools that they had at their disposal to go spy on a campaign and on u. S. Citizens which is unbelievable. If youve heard it from several today that people cant believe this happened. And you can say, yes, there are sins of omission here, but there are also sins of commission and they were deliberate and intentional and very malicious in the way they went about this. I want to talk a little bit about Christopher Steele. I was looking in appendix a, i think its 419, and it says in there he was paid 95,000 over a threeyear period of time, i believe. Correct. Okay. And what was that money paid to him for . So that would have been for various pieces of information that he gave to the fbi after being at chs in 2013. But not related to crossfire hurricane. Between 13 and 16. He was considered a trusted source and thereby he was paid. Correct. Okay. And then he began working with fusion gps in june of 2016 and that really should have raised some alarm bells with you all. November comes along of that year and you drop steele as a source, correct . The fbi dropped steele. Yes. The fbi drops him. He wasnt trusted anymore and that was because he blew his cover and started talking to the media. Correct. And they should have stopped relying on him at that point, correct . Under fbi rules, once youre closed, youre closed, you need certain approvals to start reinitiating and reengaging. Thats right. But the fbi kept using him, correct . They kept they met with him through bruce ohr. Yes. And they used him for information after he was cut off. They received that information. Right. 13 different times. Correct. Correct. Okay. So then we get this dossier. It is used as a big part of setting up this entire process for the fisa application and Christopher Steele people at the fbi know Christopher Steele was untrustworthy, he was an untrustworthy foreign actor, he was a political hack, he didnt like trump, he was being paid by the clintons, but they still pushed forward with using him and exercised extremely poor judgment, correct . Certainly once they found out that he had done they had decided to close him, they should have followed the rules if they wanted to reengage with him, but they had they had plenty of information to question the validity and the bona fides of some of the reporting. Should bruce ohr be held criminally responsible for his conduct . We make a recommendation to the department to review and thats for others to make. A couple of times weve heard about lowerlevel fbi agents and lawyers who had generated some of these inaccuracies. What is the process for supervisors factchecking . Under the woods procedures put in place in response to prior instances found of the failure to accurately relay information to the court, the first line supervisor is supposed to go through and recheck the process. But that did not happen here . That did not happen here on multiple occasions. Why did that not happen on these multiple occasions that this work was not checked . Because we were given explanations ranging from lack of understanding of the process to they were trying to skirt not only the rules but the law. We got a lot of explanations that we didnt find particular that they were skirting the law. I think what they did to carter page as you have heard is just un let me ask you this, how many times do you find how often do you find mistakes in a fisa application . Well, this is actually the first time my office has done a deep dive into a particular application. Weve done higher level reviews on the fisa process and have found various issues at a higher level. But this is the first time weve been able to delve in in this way. Its a fairly unusual occurrence. I would hope so. If its not an unusual occurrence, there are more cultural problems than you know about at the fbi, correct . Thats correct. I would say so too. Okay. I want to touch on accountability in the short amount of time that ive had i have left because i think it is absolutely just infuriating to the American People that those who executed this exercise which would have been called Operation Take down trump, because thats what they were doing, that they are still getting a taxpayerfunded paycheck, theyre tell getting taxpayerfunded benefits and vacation time. When they take off for christmas, theyre going to be on the taxpayer dime. And you know around here, from time to time youll hear people talk about those that went after the late senator stevens, one of them still working for the u. S. Attorneys office and another one is working in spoe cane. He was found to be innocent and theyre still getting a government paycheck. We want to make sure that disciplinary action was taken. Case agent number one is still there. What about ssa one . Still employed . Thats my understanding. And the lawyer is going to face criminal referrals, correct . Im going to stick with what we say in here. We referred it to the attorney general and the fbi director. The fbi sent a supervisory no, i dont want to ask you that. We know i think we know the answer to that. Peter strzok approved the request to expedite the first fisa application and he along with lisa page pushed for the expedition of the first application with doj officials, correct . Correct. Okay. So we know that she was, in answer to what senator kennedy asked you, she was involved in the line of communication and the setup of this, correct . She was involved in at least the one meeting that we identify in the report. Okay and i found it curious in your report, and this is the reason you ask it, you said that they had no role in the preparation of the approval of any of the four fisa warrant applications. So i guess if youre saying not putting pen to paper and giving a nod they were not theres a substantial chain of approval that has to go on the fbi. They were not in the chain that had to sign off on it. But they did get involved in pushing the department to get answers to they were involved in the process but just not in that way. They did not have responsibility at any step of this for signing off. Were going to get you out of here maybe a few seconds early. I want to thank you and your team very much for the patience for being here, for the report that youve given. I think many of us look forward to what general durham is going to say when he takes up some of this. But i think its important to note also, this is not the first time something has happened like this in one of our federal agencies and the reaction when im at home in tennessee from people is they cannot believe the absolute maliciousness that took place with this. It is not unfortunate coincidences. It is the surveillance state. I yield back. If you could just thank you also. We mentioned senator stevens and the bill that is pending that you cosponsored and joined. I appreciate your support for your work. One question, thank you so much mr. Chairman. Mr. Horowitz, you are investigating for 19 months, 100 witnesses, a million documents. You even have a hotline for whistleblowers. Right. So did any whistleblowers come forward during your investigation with any concern that errors were made intentionally or out of bias against trump . For example, im looking at the footnote on page 339 of your report and it cites some of the very colorful protrump tweets that were made by the fbi agents. One would think if they knew anything, they would have contacted you in the 19month investigation that you conducted. Did anybody come forward . We did not have any such evidence. So no documents, no testimony, no one coming forward to complain that would be another way of gauging motives as you put it, correct . Correct. No one came forward. Thank you so much. Thank you. I probably violated the Geneva Convention today. I really appreciate what all of you did. This is a welldocumented report. Theres a blue team, red team view to some extent but im glad to see us all come together to say this should never happen again. The fisa system has to be reformed. To the fisa court, were looking to you to take corrective action. If you take corrective action that will give us some confidence that you should stick around. If you dont, its going to be hurtful to the future of the court. All of us are thinking differently about checks and balances in that regard, the country will be stronger. Let me just end with where i began. Rather than debating whether or not there was a legal predicate reasonable articulation, which is a very low standard, to open up a preliminary investigation, durham will have his view of what really happened. He may know more than you. I dont know. I trust him to be fair. I trust you to be fair. The fact that three lawyers disagree is okay. No one has ever suggested you all did a bad job. Youve done a great job. You can reach your conclusion about the legal predicate and you have. And i respect it. And im going to assume for a moment thats the right conclusion. That doesnt matter at all to me. After it was opened, it became a nightmare. It became something that can never happen again if it came over time a criminal conspiracy to defraud the court. It became an effort by lawyers to doctor evidence. It became a conscious effort to deny the court its exculpatory information about an american citizen. They should have stopped, at least in january 2017, when the russian subsource said, everything in the dossier i disavow. Poor carter page. Two more warrant renewals after they were on notice the dossier was unreliable. All i can say is that why they did it, you can make your own decision. But its pretty clear to me that this was a lot of things, but it was not a counterintelligence investigation to protect donald trump. This was opened as a counterintelligence investigation and it kept going and going and going after it should have stopped. Because the last thing on their behind was to protect donald trump. A lot of the key players here were upset with the outcome of the 2016 election and, man, they had a lot of power. And thats what worries me the most. You may not like what the American People do but you should honor their decision. And the reason the investigation survived and kept going after so many stop signs is because people wanted it to keep going. The reason nobody briefed donald trump about you may have people working for you connected to russia is they could give a damn about protecting him. This is just my view. Its kind of odd that in a counterintelligence investigation you never brief the person whos the subject of the foreign influence like you did Dianne Feinstein and Hillary Clinton. So the bottom line here is, i hope we never have a defensive briefing or intelligence briefing where you send an fbi agent to do a 302 on the people youre briefing. This is some really scary stuff. I think i know what their motivation was, but it doesnt matter. They did it. I hope somebody holds them accountable. I hope it never ever happens again. To my democratic friends, this could happen to you one day. Mr. Horowitz, do you agree that every politician in america should be concerned about what happened here . Every american should want to make sure this fisa process works the right way. Finally to those of us in politics, how easy it is for somebody to come in our lives and our campaigns as volunteers and i would hope the fbi could tell me if they have a reasonable suspicion that somebody in my campaign is a bad acto actor so i can do something about it. What scares me the most, is the power to open up a counterintelligence investigation is almost unlimited. The power to abuse it is exactly what your report tells us about. Thank you. The hearing is adjourned and finally this is the beginning, not the end, of this committees involvement in this matter. Much more to follow. Thank you. This completes todays senate Judiciary Committee hearing with testimony from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz on his report alleging abuses of fisa. Mr. Horowitz also addressed the Justice Departments decision to start the investigation into the fbis russia inquiry. Well show you how this hearing started beginning with Opening Statements from Judiciary Committee chair Lindsey Graham and Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein