Special Counsel John Durham has released a report detailing "intelligence activities and investigations arising out of the 2016 presidential campaigns," in which he concluded that the FBI's basis for investigating Donald Trump's ties with Russia was "seriously flawed." The FBI said in a statement in response to the report that its leadership has already taken steps to correct the issues that led to the conduct described in the report.
The report, which is more than 300 pages long and was requested by and submitted to the U.S. Attorney General, drew from a variety of classified and unclassified information available to the FBI and other government agencies. Durham said much of the information and evidence was immediately available to him at the beginning of his investigation, due to its involvement in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's previous investigation, as well as a number of congressional hearings.
Durham said the purpose of his investigation was to answer several questions, including whether the FBI had "adequate predication" to open its 2016 investigation, whether the opening of that investigation was consistent with how the FBI responded to information it had previously received related to foreign actors' attempts to influence other campaigns including that of Hillary Clinton, whether the FBI "properly" considered "other highly significant intelligence it received at virtually the same time" related to Clinton's campaign, and whether any FBI personnel violated federal crime statutes during the course of their investigation. "Our findings and conclusions regarding these and related questions are sobering," the report said.
The report said that when the FBI launched its 2016 investigation, the bureau had no actual evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government officials. The FBI "swiftly" opened the investigation after receiving "unevaluated intelligence information from Australia," and no one ever spoke to the source who provided the information, the report said. The FBI's Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Peter Strzok, who launched the investigation, "at a minimum, had pronounced hostile feelings toward Trump." "The speed and manner in which the FBI opened and investigated Crossfire Hurricane during the presidential election season based on raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence also reflected a noticeable departure from how it approached prior matters involving possible attempted foreign election interference plans aimed at the Clinton campaign," the report said.
"Based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane and related intelligence activities, we conclude that the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report," Durham wrote. He noted that FBI personnel repeatedly disregarded the need for accuracy and adherence to important requirements and "displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor towards the information that they received."
He added that FBI personnel relied heavily on evidence that was supplied by political opponents of Trump and did not sufficiently consider the possible motives behind the provision of that evidence, even when they received contradicting evidence. Durham called on the FBI and the Department of Justice to renew their commitment to ensuring "proper conduct and accountability in how counterintelligence activities are carried out." Ultimately, Durham did not seek any high-level indictments.
The FBI has since released a statement in response to the report stating, "The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time. Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented. This 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."
