Attorney General William Barr on Monday ripped the FBI’s “intrusive” investigation into President Trump’s campaign after the release of the department watchdog’s review, saying the probe was launched based on the “thinnest of suspicions.”
“The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken,” Barr said in a statement, referring to Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
Barr expressed frustration that the FBI continued investigating the Trump campaign, even as “exculpatory” evidence came to the light.
“It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory,” Barr said, Fox News reported.
“Nevertheless, the investigation and surveillance was pushed forward for the duration of the campaign and deep into President Trump’s administration.”
Meanwhile, US Attorney John Durham, who is conducting a Justice Department review of the investigation into Russia’s possible ties to the Trump campaign, said Monday that he did not agree with all of the department watchdog’s report released earlier in the day.
“I have the utmost respect for the mission of the office of inspector general and the comprehensive work that went into the report prepared by Mr. Horowitz and his staff,” he said in a statement, referring to IG Michael Horowitz’s 400-page report, which found no political bias but many errors.
“However, our investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department. Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities, both inside the US and outside the US,” continued Durham, the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut.
“Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened,” he concluded, referring to Crossfire Hurricane, the feds’ probe of Russia and Trump’s campaign.
Barr assigned Durham to probe the matter.
That investigation is criminal in nature, and Republicans may look to it to uncover wrongdoing that the inspector general wasn’t examining.
The developments came the same day that the House impeachment proceedings into Trump resumed.
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