A long-awaited Justice Department inspector general’s report examining the FBI’s investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia rebuts allegations of illegal spying and that political bias played a role in the probe begun ahead of the 2016 election, but finds serious faults in other areas, according to a copy of the document obtained by The Washington Post.
The inspector general concludes that the FBI had an “authorized purpose” to initiate the investigation and that the bureau’s use of confidential informants was in compliance with the rules.
But the report also faults the FBI for “significant inaccuracies and omissions” in the FBI’s applications to secretly monitor a former Trump campaign adviser and asserts that agents “failed to meet the basic obligation” to ensure the applications were “scrupulously accurate.”
In a statement reacting to the report’s release, Attorney General William Barr stated that he believed the evidence compiled by Horowitz showed that the FBI “launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken.”
“It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory,” Barr said. “Nevertheless, the investigation and surveillance was pushed forward for the duration of the campaign and deep into President Trump’s administration.”
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