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Horowitz’s findings were so significant that he recommended the FBI’s “entire chain of command” outlined in his report for “consideration of how to assess and address their performance failures.”
During congressional testimony, Horowitz also appeared to directly contradict assertions regarding his own report’s conclusion of FBI exoneration.
“It’s unclear what the motivations [of the FBI] were,” he noted. “On the one hand, gross incompetence, negligence? On the other hand, intentionality, and where in between? We weren’t in a position—with the evidence we had—to make that conclusion. But I’m not ruling it out.”
New Questions
However, the new disclosure of Horowitz’s failure to fully cooperate with Durham might raise new questions about the conclusions the IG drew in his reviews of the Clinton email investigation, the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane inquiry, and the Carter Page FISA warrant applications.
Both of the Horowitz reports from 2018 and 2019 found significant errors on the part of the FBI, but in a manner that could be described as a “limited hangout,” his reports stopped short of formally declaring fundamental wrongdoing that would have invalidated the FBI probes—despite seemingly overwhelming evidence.
Notably, despite the lengthy list of FBI errors and misdoings, only one individual was ultimately charged—and he received only probation, despite having fabricated evidence that allowed the Page FISA to go forward.
Media organizations echoed the report’s 2019 conclusion with headlines such as “Justice Department watchdog finds Trump-Russia probe was not tainted by political bias” or “Report sharply criticizes FBI but finds no partisan bias in Russia probe.”
To this day, there has been no resolution of Horowitz’s questionable finding that the Trump–Russia collusion investigation was properly predicated. Horowitz claimed that the investigation began because of a tip from the Australian ambassador in London that a Trump aide, George Papadopoulos, had made a “suggestion of a suggestion” that Russia might be able to help Trump get elected.
At the time the tip was made, July 26, 2016, the author of a dossier on Trump, former MI6 agent Christopher Steele had already shared early dossier reports with his FBI handler, Michael Gaeta, who noted that those reports were already circulating within the FBI and at a “high level in our nation’s capital.”
The FBI’s investigation also immediately targeted Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, as well as Page, even though Papadopoulos had never mentioned either of the two. A few days later, the investigation added retired Gen. Michael Flynn—at that point an adviser to the Trump campaign—to its list of targets, again without Papadopoulos having ever mentioned Flynn.
It has long been suspected that the FBI’s Trump–Russia investigation had been underway for some time before it was formally opened on July 31, 2016. And we know that the FBI had previously opened a counterintelligence investigation into Carter Page months earlier, on April 6, 2016, immediately after his appointment to the Trump team was announced. The tip from the Australian ambassador appears to have been a convenient excuse to formalize the investigation, rather than to cause its inception.
Based on the limited information that can be gleaned from Durham’s latest filing, it isn’t yet clear what connection, if any, exists between Horowitz’s early contact with Clinton campaign lawyer Sussmann, and his subsequent findings on the Clinton email investigation, the larger Trump–Russia investigation, and the Page FISA application.
Sussmann’s defense will no doubt use this latest revelation to cast doubt on Durham’s investigation. It appears his attorneys already are attempting to cast doubt on Baker’s character as a witness.
For Durham, the issue goes far beyond his investigation of Sussmann. It was already known that Durham was threading a political needle between pursuing his investigation and keeping the heads of the Justice Department at bay.
The end of somebody
https://m.theepochtimes.com/durham-court-filing-reveals-doj-inspector-general-horowitz-withheld-key-evidence-from-special-counsel_4241595.html?slsuccess=1