Dems fear that a report on the investigation in Russia will kill their momentum of surveillance

Congress

An internal report from the Justice Department could highlight a potential political bias of FBI agents at the heart of the investigation conducted in Russia.

Democrats who are moving toward a possible indictment and reinforcing their investigations of President Donald Trump are increasingly concerned that the Justice Department is stealing their efforts.

An internal DOJ monitoring report on the origins of the investigation into Russia should highlight the potential political biases of FBI agents at the heart of the Russian investigation. The report, due out this month and up until October, could raise sharp questions about the FBI's decision making at the time – give Trump a cudgel in his long campaign to accuse the office of having organized a "coup d'etat". against him.

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They fear that the report drafted by the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, Michael Horowitz, respected by lawmakers on both sides, will slow down the pace of the Democrats' efforts to convince the Americans that Trump has prevented the government from getting the job done. investigation of Russia, later resumed by the special advocate Robert Mueller.

"Their goal is to pursue a wild goose hunt and then create a chain of unlikely connections that shows that the special advocate's report – and what we do – is somehow the fruit of the poisonous tree. . It's absurd, "said representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), A member of the Judiciary and Oversight Committees, in an interview.

Members of both parties largely agree that the findings of the Inspector General's report bode ill for senior FBI officials who have decided to launch the Trump presidential campaign investigation, giving the turn to Don and his allies all the political power they needed Democrats who seek to highlight the evidence presented in Mueller's report.

Starting next week, Democrats are pursuing an aggressive public relations strategy to shed light on the evidence in the Mueller report that Trump would have sought to defeat or otherwise close the defense lawyer's investigation. Russia's meddling in the 2016 elections. This lawsuit – which is part of the Democratic leaders' efforts to argue that Trump should be removed from office – could pose significant obstacles if Republicans succeed.

And it is not only the report of the IG that could disrupt the projects of the Democrats. Trump recently gave Attorney General William Barr the general power to declassify information about the beginning of the investigation of Russia – an order urging Democrats to warn against a selective declassification that would not tell the whole story.

"I do not think it will make us irrelevant, but it will certainly give the Republicans ammunition to try to deflect attention from the details of the Mueller investigation," said Rep. Hank Johnson (D). -Ga.), Senior Officer of the Judiciary Committee of the House. "This is a deep lack of confidence on the part of the legislature in the executive power and a profound disruption of the intelligence apparatus around the world."

In particular, the report of the Inspector General is likely to embolden Trump and give his allies new ammunition to discredit the Democrats' pursuit of his personal finances and provide further evidence that he obstructed the justice – evidence that Republicans ridiculed as a political motivation and abuse of congressional authority.

"Because Inspector General Horowitz is known for his balls and strikes, all the validity that he offers in his report corroborates some of the things that Conservative MPs have been saying for some time … will change the overnight story ", Rep. Mark Meadows (RN). .C.), One of Trump's best allies, said in an interview.

Trump is likely to cling to any evidence suggesting that an anti-Trump bias has permeated the higher echelons of the FBI. His allies at Capitol Hill have resumed allegations of bias, in addition to allegations that senior officials leaked information to the media and mistakenly based on laudable and unverified statements. statements about Trump that have been described in a controversial case by former British spy Christopher Steele.

"Just like [Democrats] As the Mueller report is published, they should wait for the IG report to be published, "Meadows added. "Because the report of the IG will actually be causing inappropriate motives for the investigation."

Democrats, anxious to see the narrative of Republicans become dominant, try to preemptively dispel these claims.

"There is really a" deep state "within the Justice Department to make Donald Trump react, so they should have revealed in 2016 that they had an ongoing counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign, "said the representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.). who sits on the intelligence and surveillance committees. "The fact that they reopened Hillary Clinton's investigation on the eve of the election is compelling evidence of the state's lack of conspiracy against Donald Trump at the Department of Justice."

"There is nothing there, it's a big nothing," added Krishnamoorthi.

The publication of the IG's report will mark for the second time in two years that Horowitz's work will become a turning point in the Congress efforts to shed light on Russia's interference in the elections. 2016. Last year he had published a report on how the FBI handled the 2016 Hillary Clinton Inquiry, concluding that he could find no evidence that political prejudices affected decisions made during the investigation.

The results of his thesis reassured the Democrats, but Horowitz also revealed that he was pursuing his investigations into the eventual opening of the FBI inquiry into Russia, launched just weeks after the end of the Clinton Inquiry in July 2016. One of the agents involved in both investigations, Peter Strzok has become a staple for Republicans, who dug up thousands of SMS over the past year in which Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page strongly criticized Trump.

"[W]We did not trust Strzok's decision to prioritize the investigation of Russia before proceeding with the complaint. [Clinton probe] was free of bias, "concluded Horowitz in this report.

Although Horowitz concluded that it was unlikely that the Clinton inquiry was influenced by any bias – in part because of multiple levels of FBI decision-making – he did not drew no conclusion as to whether Strzok's personal opinions had infected his actions in the investigation of Russia, told lawmakers last year. that he was still in the study.