While John Durham is taking some arrows even from Democrats and Republicans for not holding the Russiagate investigators accountable, former federal prosecutor Francey Hakes on Newsmax said not all FBI "malfeasance" or "misconduct" is criminal.
"It still shocks me that people that I know, people that I worked with in the same office – I handled FISA warrants with – would have signed off on this FISA warrant and Carter Page and the Crossfire Hurricane's opening, but John Durham did his job and he was measured," Hakes told Wednesday's "Carl Higbie FRONTLINE."
"It is frustrating that literally no one has been held accountable for this yet, but he also made a good point in today's hearing: Sometimes malfeasance, misconduct do not rise to the level of criminality, and that has to be addressed by the next president."
Clearly, though, the Barack Obama administration abuses its authority over justice to spy on their political rival, Hakes said to host Carl Higbie.
"The single most outrageous thing that I think we learned in the Durham report is that the Obama administration at the top levels, President Obama himself, then-Vice President [Joe] Biden, the attorney general, Director [James] Comey all knew that there was a plot by Hillary Clinton to tie, falsely tie, Donald Trump to Russian government action," Hakes said.
"And, in spite of that knowledge, or maybe because of that knowledge, they launched 'Crossfire Hurricane' anyway — and the exculpatory information about Carter Page and Donald Trump that they learned time and time again, never seemed to even slow them down," he added, referring to the investigation dubbed Crossfire Hurricane.
"The fact that you have the Steele dossier, they didn't even bother to try to verify any of its allegations until after President Trump was elected, really tells me all I need to know about the motivation of the top people at both agencies, DOJ and FBI," he added.
About NEWSMAX TV:
NEWSMAX is the fastest-growing cable news channel in America!
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.