Special Counsel John Durham has released a 300+ page report titled "Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns," in which he concluded that the FBI's investigation into collusion between Donald Trump's campaign and Russian government officials was unjustified. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said the American people deserve to be angry about the information revealed in the report, and he believes the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which has now invited Durham to testify in a hearing, will help bring accountability. Other lawmakers, like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), are calling for an overhaul of the FBI and for Hillary Clinton to be held accountable.
"If you're concerned about threats to our democracy, you are right to be angry over the coordinated campaign to lie to the American public for years about Russia collusion—peddled at the highest levels of government, from Adam Schiff to the DOJ—to try to influence an election," McCarthy tweeted May 16. "This is why Republicans created a @Weaponization Committee—to get to the bottom of this abuse of power and bring accountability."
Durham said in the report 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. Durham found that FBI personnel including Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Peter Strzok, who launched the investigation, had expressed personal bias against 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.
Durham concluded that the Department of Justice (DOJ) 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." 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 said 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 DOJ to renew their commitment to ensuring "proper conduct and accountability in how counterintelligence activities are carried out." The report has not resulted in any high-level indictments.
Weaponization Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has invited Durham to testify about the findings of the report in a May 25 hearing, according to a letter the committee shared on Twitter.
Sen. Hawley spoke about the report in an interview, saying Hillary Clinton and members of her campaign contributed to the false narrative of Russian collusion and need to be held accountable, Trending Politics reported. “People need to be prosecuted for this. The Clinton campaign and Hillary Clinton herself, is it any coincidence that she is tweeting about collusion at exactly the same time her campaign operatives are feeding this BS to the FBI? I don’t think so,” Hawley said on Jesse Waters' show. He also said the FBI's conduct revealed in the Durham report merits an overhaul of the agency. "FBI leadership has clearly got to be changed…We need to end the FBI as we know it. It needs to be broken up. I mean, clearly it has become corrupt. The leadership is corrupt," Hawley said.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) highlighted the fact that the report revealed high level officials including Barack Obama and Joe Biden were briefed on the investigation into Trump, and she called for accountability and criminal charges for those responsible. Stefanik said in a statement released on Twitter, "The long-awaited Durham report confirmed what the American people already know; that individuals at the highest levels of government attempted to overthrow democracy when they illegally weaponized the federal government against Donald J. Trump. This criminal abuse of power went all the way up to the Oval Office where President Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden were in on it from the very beginning...Crossfire Hurricane was nothing more than an illegal, unlawful, and unAmerican abuse of power. I am more committed than ever to ensuring that those involved are held accountable and face criminal prosecution."
