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DOJ IG: Russia Probe Lawful, But Found ‘Serious Performance Failures’ by the FBI

DOJ IG: Russia Probe Lawful, But Found ‘Serious Performance Failures’ by the FBI

Good and bad news for everyone on the political spectrum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQNeEO-hnOU

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz released his report on the origins of the Russia investigation, which is likely to please both sides of the political spectrum.

The IG found justification to investigate the Russia investigation and did not find any “intentional misconduct or political bias.” However, the investigators discovered many “significant” errors concerning the FISA warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Opening the Russia Investigation

FBI’s then-Counterintelligence Assistant Director E.W. “Bill” Priestap made the decision to open the Russian investigation called Crossfire Hurricane.

Horowitz’s office determined “that AD Priestap’s exercise of discretion in opening the investigation was in compliance with Department and FBI policies.”

The office “did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced” Priestap’s decision.

The FBI had little information to go on to start the investigation, but the evidence brought in by Horowitz led the team to conclude “that Crossfire Hurricane was opened for an authorized investigative purpose and with sufficient factual predication.”

Major Mistakes Regarding FISA Applications

The IG report stated the investigators “did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the FBI’s decision to seek” the first FISA authority on Page.

Yet the report says the team “found that the FBI did not have information corroborating the specific allegations against” Page described in Christopher Steele’s dossier.

The IG office ripped the FBI for failing “to adhere to its own standards of accuracy and completeness when filing applications” for FISA warrants “to surveil Carter Page.”

The office also included what they “believe is an absence of sufficient policies to ensure appropriate Department oversight of significant investigative decisions that could affect constitutionally protected activity.” The report said:

Nevertheless, we found that members of the Crossfire Hurricane team failed to meet the basic obligation to ensure that the Carter Page FISA applications were “scrupulously accurate.” We identified significant inaccuracies and omissions in each of the four applications-7 in the first FISA application and a total of 17 by the final renewal application. For example, the Crossfire Hurricane team obtained information from Steele’s Primary Sub-source in January 2017 that raised significant questions about the reliability of the Steele reporting that was used in the Carter Page FISA applications. But members of the Crossfire Hurricane team failed to share the information with the Department, and it was therefore omitted from the three renewal applications. All of the applications also omitted information the FBI had obtained from another U.S. government agency detailing its prior relationship with Page, including that Page had been approved as an operational contact for the other agency from 2008 to 2013, and that Page had provided information to the other agency concerning his prior contacts with certain Russian intelligence officers, one of which overlapped with facts asserted in the FISA application.

Horowitz provided the “seven significant inaccuracies and omissions” in the first application:

https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf

https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf

https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf

https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf

The FBI did not fare any better with its three renewal applications for the continued FISA on Page. They found ten more errors within these three applications:

https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf

https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf

Despite the mistakes outlined by Horowitz, the office would “not speculate whether the correction” of any of the mistakes “would have resulted in a different outcome.”

Horowitz provided a list of recommendations to the DOJ and FBI. The last bit recommended the Bureau “review the performance of all employees who had responsibility for the preparation, Woods review, or approval of the FISA applications, as well as the managers, supervisors, and senior officials in the chain of command of the Carter Page investigation, for any action deemed appropriate.”

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Comments

OK, let’s get this straight. No so called bias or malice, yet so incredibly incompetent that no one would ever want any of these people serving under them in law enforcement. I know what Horowitz is doing, since he is a swamp creature himself, but the only alternative to malice is gross incompetence.

    notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to NotCoach. | December 9, 2019 at 1:48 pm

    HEAR! HEAR!

    SPOT ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Mark Meadows:

    I Now Understand the Reason for Media/Democrat Defensive Leaks; It’s Worse Than They’ve Been Claiming

    —Ace of Spades

    Nancy Pelosi’s daughter:
    ‘She’ll cut your head off’
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Th4a9QhGng

      notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital. | December 9, 2019 at 1:53 pm

      This comment applies to all the Uni-Party (DEMS and RINOS/NeverTrumpers).

      “That thin veneer of compassion masks a cold and cruel calculation and psychopathology which is abhorrent to anyone with any shred of a soul left.

      The sad truth is that Pelosi in her near-dementia might actually now believe some of this stuff she’s spouting. Here she does a CNN Town Hall in which she parrots the current climate hysteria saying that civilization itself depends on removing Donald Trump from the White House.”

      https://www.zerohedge.com/political/pelosis-love-everyones-tragedy

        notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital. | December 9, 2019 at 1:56 pm

        Ibib.

        And Pelosi, like the people she ultimately represents, are telling us that they will ‘love us all to death‘ to achieve their goals. It’s the most sick and twisted form of manipulation possible.

        She’s morphed from the tough broad from San Francisco to the epitome of Toxic Femininity, the over-bearing mother archetype. And any threat to her power will be met with the cruelest counter-attack.

        She’s Nurse Ratched with Botox.

        And Donald Trump is her R. P. McMurphy.

        And in every way Pelosi knows that she’s locked in an existential battle for control over the future of America. She knows that she’s been tasked with delivering results on destroying Trump and if she doesn’t she’ll be cast aside.

        No rational person can actually think the world is going to end in twelve years when they take even a cursory look at the climate data. But Pelosi is an order-taker not an order-maker in the hierarchy of political dominance.

        And the call has come from above her pay-grade to sell this climate hysteria as the way to keep the program on track to finish the globalist’s dream of universal serfdom for us and perpetual power for them.

        And Pelosi, like the people she ultimately represents, are telling us that they will ‘love us all to death‘ to achieve their goals. It’s the most sick and twisted form of manipulation possible.

        She’s morphed from the tough broad from San Francisco to the epitome of Toxic Femininity, the over-bearing mother archetype. And any threat to her power will be met with the cruelest counter-attack.

        She’s Nurse Ratched with Botox.

        And Donald Trump is her R. P. McMurphy.

        And in every way Pelosi knows that she’s locked in an existential battle for control over the future of America. She knows that she’s been tasked with delivering results on destroying Trump and if she doesn’t she’ll be cast aside.

        No rational person can actually think the world is going to end in twelve years when they take even a cursory look at the climate data. But Pelosi is an order-taker not an order-maker in the hierarchy of political dominance.

        And the call has come from above her pay-grade to sell this climate hysteria as the way to keep the program on track to finish the globalist’s dream of universal serfdom for us and perpetual power for them…..”

        Good reading there.

          Obligatory quote:

          “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
          ~CS Lewis

          Not that I imagine there’s even a shred of good intentions here, mind you.

          notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital. | December 9, 2019 at 2:16 pm

          Venril, excellent quote of C.L.Lewis.

    NavyMustang in reply to NotCoach. | December 9, 2019 at 2:19 pm

    This is Hillary Email Redux.

      CorkyAgain in reply to NavyMustang. | December 9, 2019 at 10:03 pm

      Speaking of which, is there any reason she could not still be prosecuted for her handling of those emails, despite Comey’s report?

      As I understand it as a non-lawyer, double jeopardy doesn’t apply because Comey’s decision not to recommend prosecution wasn’t the result of a trial.

      Am I missing something here?

Like HRC they were extremely careless but not grossly negligent lol

    PrincetonAl in reply to FOAF. | December 9, 2019 at 2:03 pm

    “It was bad … but not so bad that I would risk my job saying how bad it was. Plus you Republicans are wussies and would never fire me unlike the Democrats. Plus I’m a Democrat myself.

    So let’s just call it a little bad.

    Mmm .. everyone okay?”

    IG Horowitz

It appears to be an extension of the coup — Nothing to see here, keep moving.

The coup has only good intentions so “mistakes get made.”

Trump has only bad intentions so “no evidence” means guilty of crimes (pick any, make some up, whatever).

swamp water whitewash.

we are no longer a nation of laws, and, furthermore, they have made it perfectly clear that we will not be allowed to vote our way out of this…

one option is submission to their will.

So another July 5, 2016 event just not delivered by Comey?

Paul In Sweden | December 9, 2019 at 2:24 pm

There is a quick video on fox from AG Barr

Barr releases scathing statement on inspector general’s FISA report – YouTube

Attorney General William Barr says FBI launched an intrusive investigation into a presidential campaign on thinnest of suspicions; reaction and analysis from ‘Special Report’ anchor Bret Baier.

–https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9iccDcGdBc

notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital | December 9, 2019 at 2:43 pm

Steve Hilton (today) breaks this all down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpGJGrHKMvc

Horowitz reminds one of the corrupted old sheriff of a cattle town, toadying to the cattle baron, whose biggest concern is his aching back.

Subotai Bahadur | December 9, 2019 at 4:18 pm

Assuming that there are historical records maintained for future readers, of whatever society and government rules in the territory of the former United States; THIS will be marked as the Alea iacta est/Rubicon moment when the last hope of maintaining the rule of law and Constitutional means of operating the government of the United State.

The Organs of State Security, under whatever name, are now in charge. They cannot be voted or indicted out of being in charge.

Subotai Bahadur

So basically they tore the country apart because they were idiots, rather than malicious. Just fire everyone.

American Human | December 9, 2019 at 4:57 pm

Did anyone expect that there would be written evidence of bias? That someone at the FBI would actually write down in the application or somewhere else: “I want to do this because Trump is a Republican and I hate his orange skin.” or something to that effect?
Who was the judge that merely rubber-stamped this over and over? Get rid of FISA NOW!!! I can be used to spy on ANYONE for any reason whatsoever.
As I expected, no one was named as the one who screwed it all up so therefore Pages civil rights were violated horribly and nothing will happen to anyone except Carter Page.
Our betters have done it again and we bent over for them to make it easy.

Horowitz was there to stall for 2 years. He wrote the conclusion to this report 2 years ago and then spent the time finding justification. He is an Obama deep stater and always was.

This is not how to restore trust in the legal system.

    Barry Soetoro in reply to ray. | December 9, 2019 at 7:51 pm

    Definitely a step in furtherance of Civil War II. Seems like Horowitz found the most minimal wrongdoing he felt he could possibly justify. Wednesday’s Senate committee hearing will determine whether his ploy can be sold to most of the electorate. Unfortunately, Graham is already playing his typical role of appeaser.

    Subotai Bahadur in reply to ray. | December 9, 2019 at 8:46 pm

    Some things, sadly, are ontologically impossible by non-kinetic means.

    Subotai Bahadur

Michael Horowitz is a Deep State rat and most thinking people knew what the outcome of this two year charade would bring.