Testifying today in the Senate Judiciary Committee, 66-year-old Department of Justice [DOJ] Inspector General [IG] Michael Horowitz presented his 434-page report about FBI’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [FISA] abuse. Horowitz got swept up in Washington’s partisan atmosphere, diluting his review of the FBI’s counterintelligence probe of 73-year-old President Donald Trump’s campaign and time as president. Horowitz did everything possible to keep his report above politics. But, in the end, Democrats and Republicans read what they wanted into his lengthy analysis. Horowitz said he found no “evidence” of political bias inside the FBI, despite widely publicized text messages and emails between 50-year-old former FBI Agent Peter Sttrzok and 39-year-old mistress, former FBI attorney Lisa Page, both of whom exchanged extensive texts and emails ranting about Trump.
Strzok and Page claimed vindication from accusations that they held political bias against Trump while working at the FBI. Both say they expressed only their personal opinions but it didn’t impact their actual work. Trump’s detractors, while embarrassed, dismiss Strzok and Page’s electronic communications, while Trump’s backers, accuse to two of extreme political bias. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said Horowitz’s report shows as disturbing pattern of political bias and subterfuge at the highest echelons of the DOJ and FBI. Graham connected all-the-dots for Horowitz and the Senate Judiciary Committee, describing a conspiracy at the DOJ and FBI to sabotage the campaign and presidency of Trump. Horowitz confined his remarks to his bureaucratic probe into whether the DOJ and FBI followed appropriate procedures.
Hyped by the media, Horowitz’s report was not suppose to expose the so-called “Deep State” in a conspiracy to undermine Trump’s campaign and presidency. When Horowitz says he found no “evidence” of political bias at the FBI, he’s narrowly focused on the FISA court proceedings. Graham made it emphatically clear that the former FBI Director James Comey, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Agent Peter Strzok and Attorney Lisa Page, relied heavily on former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s paid opposition research on Trump AKA “the dossier.” Graham made clear that the FBI knew the dossier was bogus when they presented a clear-and-present danger to U.S. national security to the FISA court. Horowitz did not comment on the FBI’s “probable cause” to launch its counterintelligence investigation into Trump volunteer foreign policy aide Carter Page.
Unlike Graham who connected-the-dots, Horowitz refused to speculate about the FBI’s “probable cause” in investigating Page and other members of Trump’s campaign, including former Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and former National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn. Horowitz gave Comey and his upper brass the benefit-of-the doubt on the probable cause behind Carter’s counterintelligence investigation. Citing 17 instances of “basic and fundamental errors” in the FBI handling of the FISA process, FBI Director Christopher Wray said he agreed with Horowitz’s findings and intends to implement all the corrective actions. Atty. Gen. William Barr expressed disappointment with Horowitz’s report, disagreeing with the IG’s finding of no evidence of political bias. Democrats seized on Horowitz’s findings, jumping to the conclusion that no political bias existed at the FBI.
Horowitz did not say there wasn’t political bias at the FBI. He said plainly he had no “evidence” of political bias, largely because it was not his focus. Graham made a compelling case of political bias that fell on Democrats’ deaf ears, looking to exonerate the FBI for investigating their political enemy, President Donald Trump. Democrats pointed fingers at Barr for appointing his own prosecutor U.S. Atty. John Durham (R-Conn.) to get to the bottom of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign. “Simply put, the FBI investigation was motivated by facts, not bias,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, ranking member on the Judiciary Committee. Feinstein’s known for playing politics, especially in the confirmation hearings of Associate Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Feinstein agreed with plaintiff Christine Blazey Ford who accused Kavanaugh of attempted rape.
Nothing in Horwitz’s report acquitted anyone at the FBI or anywhere else of an organized conspiracy to sabotage Trump’s campaign and presidency. Horowitz’s, as the DOJ’s Inspector General, was narrowly focused on whether or not FBI officials followed the rules related to obtaining FISA warrants to wiretap private citizens and government officials. “People at the highest levels of government took the law into their own hands,” Graham said, referring former President Barack Obama, former Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch, National Security Adviser Susan Rice and former FBI Director James Comey. When Durham comes out with his report next Spring, he’s going to go further than Horowitz in identifying the chain-of-command behind the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation. Criticized by Barr and Durham, Horowitz didn’t get into motives, only stuck to the FBI’s breach of department procedure.
