The Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz released his report on FBI surveillance abuses. What the report says:
- The report confirms Obama officials abused their FISA power to trigger an investigation into Trump campaign officials.
- There was a serious bias against Donald Trump inside the FBI/DOJ and many were willing to take action to impact Donald Trump’s electoral process.
- The IG report finds the Obama FBI made numerous “serious factual inaccuracies and omissions” in the FISA warrant application that authorized spying on fmr. Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.
- The serious omissions undercut certain allegations in the applications.
- The relevant information about Carter Page was not shared with the appropriate officials prior to the application for the FISA warrant being submitted.
- Horowitz calls the FISA warrant, “Inaccurate, incomplete, and unsupported.”
- The report makes it clear that Obama’s FBI failed to meet the basic obligation to ensure the applications were “scrupulously accurate.”
- Horowitz called the errors “serious performance failures” by the agents working on the investigation and top officials at the FBI.
- The report confirms the Steele dossier – paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC – is a work of fantasy and was relied upon to apply for the FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page.
- Everyone can agree the FISA application was not handled well and that is indefensible.
- The IG is opening an additional investigation into how the FBI uses FISA warrants, how they apply and whether more protocol should be put in place to protect American citizens.
- Obama’s FBI and Intelligence Community had evidence of no collusion between President Trump and Russia in the fall of 2016 yet pursued spying warrants against the Trump campaign and perpetuated the collusion narrative anyway to undermine President Trump’s administration.
