I want to tone things down a little bit here and First Express my gratitude for the thousands of men and women who work every day 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 General hes job is incredibly important. He keeps everyone honest. But i do think this it is important for those t agents an those in Law Enforcement that are watching today that people understand there are people up here that understand that you are simply doing your jobs. Which i think is basically some recommendations Foric Change Wh the Inspector General found in this report. So before iis start my question
i think that it is important to put this discussion in context in the 2016 election which is why we are here today. It is nowe undisputed by our Intelligence Agencies that rus
call into question chairman burr s statement that, quote, russia is waging an information wear fair campaign against the u.s. that didn t start and didn t end with the 2016ai election? no, it doesn t. does anything in your report call into question the saesment by director wray that russia s stwfr interference is on going and that its interference about in the 2018ha midterms were a, quo, dress rehearsal for the 2020 elections? no, it doesn t. does i anything in your repo call into question the finding in the special counsel s report that quote the russia government perceived that it would benefit from a trump presidency? we don t take issue with apat of the special right now sell s report. did you find political bias affected the decision to open the investigation into george
see director wray say he doesn t think that there are any problem, i don t know how any american can have confidence in that institution and in the integrity of our elections if things like that can happen. so thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for being here, mr. horowitz. and again, thank you to you and your team for your work. do you agree that the fbi meddled in the 2016 election? what ile found is in this report. did you findi is any evidenc that the fbi purposefully intervened to affect the outcome ofte the 2016 election? we ve written about with a wi what they did here and i ll stand on those findings. i didn t find l any conclusi that the fbi meddled to affect the outcome.
in our nation? absolutely. more.dn t agree and it is a testament to congress for creating the inspector general. and this is why we have your office and inspector general to provide an independent assessment of the facts that is not beholden to any particular partisaned agenda. chris wray said that the fbi accepts the report she findings and embraces the need for thoughtful meaningful action. and let me express my please, to you and to director wray for being guided by the facts rather than some b of the moreless breathless conspiracy theories. and your report found that the fbi hador an authorized purpose when itan opened its investigatn into whether individuals associated with the campaign withined coordinating with the russian government broad efforts to interfere in our election. and do you stachb by thyou stan
you d have on ask what about procedures at the fbi, what procedures have been changed at the fbi to date to prevent something like that from happening? all that i m aware of is what is in director wray s letter. but certainly there are far more reforms andr changes that are needed to address all of our recommendations. it is a good beginning, but a lot more to be done. and i ll say in closing that i think it is an extraordinary thing when the most powerful law enforcement agency in the country, maybe the world, is able to effectively intervene and influence a presidential election at the behest and with the cooperation of another political party. inmean, i ve been saying for a long time that there is no collusion in the 2016 campaign. maybe i m wrong, but i think the collusion was between the dnc andus the fbi and if we don t change something here, i mean to