well as bureau leaders involved in the early stages of the trump/russia investigation, but to absolve the top ranks of abusing their powers out of bias against president trump. that s according to people briefed on a draft. according to the times it concludes the fbi met the legal standard for opening the investigation and that none of the evidence to launch the investigation came from the controversial steele dossier. the report, which is expected to arrive early next month, came up in what was described as and appeared to be a tense oval office meeting late last week caught on camera between attorney general barr, the president, and others. according to the times, the draft debunks a series of trump conspiracy theories and insinuations about the fbi, fired fbi director james comey and fired acting director andrew mccabe and these two mentioned just this morning. and when you look at strzok and page with the insurance policy where, you know, the two lovers, the two great lovers
the i.g. is known for saying, if you didn t shine your shoes right today, you re going to get whacked. among my colleagues, this report is really embarrassing, but it is not what many people would have expected, that is, at the leadership levels of the fbi, there is a deep state effort to take down the presidency with an investigation. this is actually, in my world of inspector general investigations, relatively modest. adam, the major finding that has gotten all the attention so far was that this line attorney falsified a document. that is the allegation here, and that is a serious charge. there is a criminal referral for that. but to be clear on what it was, it was falsifying a document on a renewal for the fisa application, not even the original fisa application. and would the fisa application still have been accepted even if that hadn t been altered? yeah. let s not minimize that, right?
kevin kline smith, the lawyer who is accused of wrongdoing, the false statement, is an add-on to what durham is doing, you know, looking at the intelligence community assessment of russian interference. you know, it s not clear where this is going to head, and let s just be frank. is any of this going to matter? the inspector general of the department of justice is going to put out a report with facts. but the truth has been so eroded these last few years, you know, what s the public going to take away from this? phil, again, you ve been on the inside here. is it embarrassing for these fbi, you know, officials who will be named as being clumsy at best and criminally at worst? oh, hell, yeah. this isn t clumsy. if that lawyer and i gather that lawyer has left his position in government. if that lawyer was in government, i think he should be fired immediately, not like last minute. i mean like now. that person needs to go.
and our counterterrorism analyst. a lot of titles for you, phil. still you re going to have to wait because i m going to go to jeffrey first. what do you make of this? this is one of the things the president and his allies have talked about for some time, that this campaign was launched on false premises. this report does not find that. including impeachment hearings. the phrase that i think of when i read adam s brilliant reporting here is deep state. one of the main hypotheses of the entire trump presidency has been that the deep state, the fbi, the cia, the state department people who are apparently, according to the president, secret liberals, have been out to get him from the beginning and using their powers to discredit the trump campaign and now discredit the trump presidency. and what this report does, it seems, based on adam s reporting, in a conscientious way to say that s not true.
department s inspector general is expected to sharply criticize lower-level fbi officials as well as bureau leaders involved in the early stages of the trump/rust investigation, but to absolve the top ranks of abusing their powers out of bias against president trump, that s according to people briefed on a draft, according to the times it concludes the fbi met the legal standard for opening the investigation and that none of the evidence to launch the investigation came from the controversial steele dossier. the report which is expected to arrive early next month came up in what was described as in what appeared to be a tense oval office meeting late last week caught on camera between attorney general barr, the president and others. according to the times, the draft debunks a series of trump conspiracy theories and insin weighings about the fbi. fired fbi director james comey and fired acting director andrew mccabe and these two mentioned just this morning. and when you look at s