Some critics of special counsel John Durham's investigation into the origins of the Russian collusion inquiry have mistakenly cited the 2019 Justice Department's inspector general report to defend the FBI from Durham's claim of widespread political bias, the Washington Examiner reported on Wednesday.
But Michael Horowitz's 2019 report, in fact, revealed that the FBI acted improperly on numerous occasions and potentially due to political bias while carrying out the Russia probe.
This means that instead of providing the FBI's defenders with cover, Horowitz's report actually revealed extensive misconduct and even illegal activity.
"They continue to say Horowitz looked at this and said he didn't see any evidence of bias," Andrew McCarthy, a former U.S. attorney, told the Washington Examiner. "That's almost the opposite of what he says."
In an earlier report, the Justice Department inspector general had revealed text messages between two high-ranking FBI officials who talked about their eagerness to stop Donald Trump from becoming president at the time both were involved in the Russia probe.
While the 2019 report "did not find documentary or testimonial evidence" of additional political bias in starting the Russia probe, neither did it conclude that bias played no role in the inquiry, as some FBI defenders are now claiming following the Durham report.
The inspector general's team "did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or problems we identified," Horowitz wrote, and IG investigators believed that the FBI agents on the case "may have improperly substituted their own judgments in place of the judgment" of intelligence officials or the courts, according to the Washington Examiner.
Horowitz's inquiry found "significant inaccuracies and omissions" in the FBI's application for a surveillance warrant aimed at a former Trump associate, including "basic, fundamental, and serious errors" that agents committed when asking a judge to approve multiple warrants.
And Horowitz uncovered evidence that an FBI lawyer purposely altered an email to cover up information that would have harmed the case for extending the surveillance warrant, a crime for which Durham secured a guilty plea in 2020.
McCarthy stressed that both Horowitz and Durham reveal a picture of an FBI operating outside the rules in pursuit of Trump, despite the media pushing a narrative of the two watchdogs being at odds.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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