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Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has formally completed his investigation into allegations of abuse by the Justice Department and the FBI under Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Surveillance.
The Republican Representative of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Doug Collins revealed in a letter Thursday that Mr. Horowitz informed Attorney General William Barr about the end of his investigation earlier in the day.
Horowitz said in a letter to congressional leaders that his team was "finalizing our report by providing a draft of our factual findings to the Department and the FBI for classification determination and marking." Once the redactions are done and the report is returned to the Inspector General, the Horowitz team will continue its usual process of preparing the final draft of public and classified reports, and will ensure that appropriate examinations are made for the purpose of clarification and comment. "
The Horowitz team reviewed the FISA application and three renewals from October 2016 to monitor the former Trump campaign advisor, Carter Page. The claims were based on the unverified record prepared by former British spy Christopher Steele, who had been hired by the opposition Fusion GPS research firm and funded by Democrats.
Republicans have alleged that the FBI and the Justice Department have misled the Foreign Intelligence Watch Court about Democratic supporters of the case, including Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The anti-Trump bias of its author had been left out demanded responsibility. The Democrats countered that the FBI had acted appropriately, saying the Justice Department and the FBI had respected the rigor, transparency and evidence base for a probable cause.
Meanwhile, Barr's "Investigator Investigation" is underway and the Attorney General said that he was working very closely with Horowitz. The Inspector General can recommend prosecutions, and US lawyer John Durham, whom Barr has commissioned to conduct a review of the origins of the investigation into Russia, has the ability to summon a grand jury and summon outside the government.
Collins said his committee "must act quickly to address the concerns expressed in the inspector general's report" and implored the judiciary president, Jerry Nadler, to hold a hearing with Horowitz and the FBI director, Christopher Wray. Nadler, confronted by GOP representative Jim Jordan earlier this week, said that an audience with Horowitz would be held at the "opportune moment".
The documents filed by FISA had to be approved by the highest members of the FBI and the Ministry of Justice; The targets of the Horowitz investigation probably included approvers of the four applications and renewals: former FBI director James Comey; former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates; Dana Boente, the only active signatory to the government and currently Trump's senior FBI attorney; Andrew McCabe, then deputy director of the FBI; and the then Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, who had appointed former FBI director Robert Mueller, special advocate the previous month.
The 412 pages of redacted FISA documents published in 2018 show that the Ministry of Justice and the FBI have widely used the unaudited Steele file, which he set up in 2016 at the request of the firm's research firm. opposition Fusion GPS. The Clinton campaign hired the firm through Marc Elias of the Perkins Coie law firm and was briefed on Steele's findings throughout the race.
The Inspector General of the Department of Justice stated that when he opened the investigation last year at the request of the Attorney General of the day, Jeff Sessions, he would consider "the respect by the Ministry of Justice of Justice and the FBI's legal requirements "with respect to FISA's statements against Page, as well as the GM and the FBI's relations with Steele.
In his Friday letter, Horowitz disclosed the scope of his investigation.
"As I indicated in my June correspondence, my mission was to follow the evidence each time it happened and complete the review as soon as possible. The team has reviewed more than a million records and conducted more than 100 interviews, including several witnesses who have recently agreed to be, said the Inspector General.
The Ministry of Justice refused to comment on the Washington Examiner.
The central thesis of the Steele case was "a well developed cooperation plot" between the Trump campaign and Russia, but Mueller disagreed. Although Mueller concluded that the Russians had intervened in the 2016 presidential election, the investigation failed to establish that the Kremlin and Trump campaign had conspired in a criminal manner . Mueller's report also denounces at least one of Steele's biggest claims: Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, met with foreign hackers in Prague.
Horowitz reportedly "joined" Steele and his team reportedly interviewed the ex-spy in June.
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