Members of the US House of Representatives are using a special counsel’s report to renew their argument that federal law enforcement is tainted by political bias.
John Durham, who recently completed his report on the FBI’s investigation of former US president Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, was to testify yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee one day after Durham met behind closed doors with members of the House Intelligence Committee.
Durham produced one conviction in a four-year investigation, and his report said that FBI agents withheld key information from judges and disregarded reasons not to investigate Trump’s campaign.
Photo: AP
The 2016 campaign probe, known as “Crossfire Hurricane,” has prompted calls for curbs on the FBI in exchange for renewing surveillance powers known as Section 702 that expire at the end of this year.
Durham was appointed by former US attorney-general William Barr to review the origins of the investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign.
He concluded that the FBI acted too hastily and without sufficient justification to launch a full investigation and that it showed more caution on allegations that former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton mishandled classified information on her private e-mail server.
He also said that the FBI cited the so-called Steele dossier before the primary US surveillance court even after investigators failed to corroborate “a single substantive allegation” within it.
The Clinton campaign partially funded creation of the dossier and agreed last year with the Democratic National Committee to pay a US$113,000 fine for misreporting campaign spending on research.
The FBI is also facing criticism of how it handles intelligence collected electronically under Section 702, which allows US spy agencies to collect foreign telephone calls and e-mails for their investigations.
However, a declassified surveillance court opinion found that the FBI had run thousands of unsupported searches of Americans.
Previewing Durham’s meeting with the Intelligence Committee, US Representative Mike Turner, the panel’s chairman, last week said that the FBI “went off the rails” and hurt the justice system’s credibility.
“Rules and laws need to be changed so that these mechanisms cannot be used again in this way to really harm the American public,” he said.
FBI Director Chris Wray has acknowledged errors in how the FBI handled the Trump probe.
In a statement on Tuesday, the FBI said that it had “already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time.”
The Durham report “reinforces the importance of ensuring the FBI continues to do its work with the rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect,” the statement said.
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